Perfect Strangers
by momsforpercy
Summary: A funny, bittersweet story about two teen-agers who happen to be falling madly, wonderfully, totally in love . . . each with the wrong person.
1. Summary

A funny, bittersweet story about two teen-agers who happen to be falling madly, wonderfully, totally in love . . . each with the wrong person.

He is Percy Jackson. At home in the heart of Manhattan, Percy is the star and captain of the Goode High School swim team. He is seventeen and on the brink of falling in love with Calli Forbes-Buchanan, the most desirable and least available woman in the world. And she is falling in love with him.

She is Annabeth Chase. Living in suburban Connecticut, Annabeth is the first female to direct the school play at Westport High School. She is seventeen and on the brink of falling in love with Luke Castellan, the senior class prankster and genius.

They are perfect strangers, living in two different worlds, never dreaming that they are perfect….for each other.


	2. Chapter 1  Annabeth

**Chapter One – Annabeth **

Looking lean and limber in a slinky black dress and heels, Annabeth Chase stood at the back of the Westport High School auditorium.

Up on the stage, the kids she'd cast in the Drama Club's fall production of _The Philadelphia Story_were giving the performance of their lives.

In the rows of seats before her and the balcony above, the opening night audience was raising the rafters with sounds of approval. They were laughing in all the right places and the applause was thunderous. In all her life, Annabeth had never felt so happy.

Annabeth has the esteem honor of being the first girl to ever be chosen to direct the Drama Club's annual show. The way things were going, she made the most of this opportunity. As the way things were going, _The Philadelphia Story_ was sure to be a smash hit.

Halfway through the second act, the play was nearing its turning point – the moment when Tracy Lord, the beautiful society girl, topples from her ivory pedestal and falls in the awaiting arms of Mike Connor, the down-to-earth and oh-so-devilishly-handsome reporter.

But just then, just when Tracy is teetering on the brink of toppling, Grover Underwood barged through a door at the back of the auditorium, screams "thank the gods!" and brought Annabeth crashing back to reality.

It was Wednesday morning, a few minutes before the start of school. Opening night was still nine days away. Annabeth was standing at the back of the empty auditorium. She was dressed in her typical uniform of jeans, graphic tee shirt, cardigan and sneakers.

Grover, her stage manager and close friend, was standing in front of her looking like he was about to tell her that someone ran over her dog.

"Okay," she said, bracing herself for the news. "What is it?"

Grover continued to stand there like he was about to enter a funeral.

"That bad?"

Grover nodded and said, "Ryan Crawford."

Ryan was the boy Annabeth had chosen to play Mike Connor, the male lead that made it so easy for Tracy to topple from said pedestal.

"What about him?" Annabeth asked.

"He tried to call you, but your mobile is off. So he called me."

"Jeez Grover, get a grip. First of all, it's called a 'cell phone.' This whole "wanting to talk British" thing needs to end. Yes some girls may find it sexy, but from you, it's just weird. And secondly, what could be so wrong to put you in this state?"

"He's out."

"Say what now?"

"Out. As in out of the play."

"Say what now?"

"He has mono."

"Say what now?"

"For gods sake, Annabeth, stop saying that! Ryan was feeling ill so he went to the doctors last night and he has mono."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"He had tests."

"Are you sure?"

".Tests!" Grover exclaimed.

"How's everyone else? Oh gods! What if the whole cast has it?"

Grover tried to use his soothing and non-British voice, "I already called everyone and they all say they feel fine."

Annabeth told herself it wasn't as bad as it might have been. At least Ryan hadn't given it to the rest of the cast. But what good was the rest of the cast if she didn't have anyone to play Mike Connor?

"What are we going to do?" Grover demanded. So much for being soothing. Normally he was about as sweet and laid back as a guy can be but in a crisis he tended to get a tad hysterical.

Calmly, as though it was no big deal, Annabeth said, "We are going to replace him."

"With who?"

"Whom."

"With _whom_ then?"

Annabeth shrugged, "Oh, with some hot, smart, talented, tough-but-tender guy or other."

"Who can learn the part by a week from Friday," Grover reminded her.

"Exactly," said Annabeth.

"Like whom?" asked Grover.

"Who."

"Urgh! Like _who_, then?"

Annabeth shrugged and said "Like Robert Pattinson or Jake Gyllenhaal."

Grover blanched, "Jake, I can give you that. But R-Patz? Really? Don't tell me you are a Twi-hard?"

"What? Okay so the books leave a lot to be desired but you have to admit that Edward Cullen is a bit dreamy."

"Okay let's leave Planet Bizarro for a second. What are we going to do?"

That was a tough one. Right from the start, finding someone to play Mike Connor had been a major hassle. Mike was supposed to be a tough guy with the soul of a poet, a man's man that a woman just could not resist. And that seems to run in short supply here at Westport High School. As far as Annabeth could tell, there were not a lot of guys like that around anywhere. She is only seventeen, of course, and there is always hope for the future, but so far – in all her seventeen years – not one tough guy with the soul of a poet had crossed her path. And it wasn't like she hadn't been looking, either. In her life, Annabeth had checked out her fair share of tough guys, the soul of a horny teenage guy – yes. Soul of a poet – not so much.

But that wasn't the point. The point wasn't whether or not such a thing as a tough guy with the soul of a poet actually existed in the Known Universe. The point was, the guy who played Mike Connor didn't have to be Mike Connor. He just had to act like him. You wouldn't think that finding somebody who could do that would be such a hassle. But it was.

Ryan wasn't a tough guy and he didn't have the soul of a poet. But he was good looking in that J. Crew ad kind of way that most girls found completely desirable. And he could act - a little. With a solid month of rehearsal under their belts, he looked like he was going to work out just fine. Well, it looked like it was going to work out.

"What about somebody we auditioned?" Grover asked, snapping Annabeth out of her musing.

In her mind, Annabeth ran over the eight other guys they auditioned. Most of them seemed nice enough and a few were not totally unattractive but none of them had "it." Annabeth did not think that any of those eight guys could cause the beautiful and high-and-mighty Tracy Lord to lose her head over them.

"No one we auditioned," Annabeth said.

Out in the hallway, the bell for school rang. Annabeth had four minutes to get upstairs to her homeroom and into her seat.

"Somebody else?" asked Grover as he followed her out to the crowded hallway.

Annabeth nodded, "Somebody else."

"Like who?"

As they reached the stairs to the second floor, Annabeth stopped and turned to Grover. "I'll think of somebody."

As Grover turned and ran to his homeroom, Annabeth watched him and listened to the panicky voice shouting inside her racing mind, _Like who?_

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**A/N: As you can see, this is an AU story. No Greek gods, no monsters and no special powers. Just two teenagers who are experiencing the twists and turns of life - school, friends, and most importantly love. Reviews are welcome and greatly appreciated.**

****Best, MFP


	3. Chapter 2  Percy

**Chapter Two – Percy**

"Hey, Jackson! Wait up!"

Hours later and less than 100 miles away, on the island of Manhattan, Percy Jackson was leading his posse down the hallway of Goode High School.

The captain and star of the Goode High School, swim team, Percy isn't big as athletes go – five foot, eleven inches. He may not be as bulky as the goons on the football team, but he has what all competitive male swimmers have - excellent ripped and lean muscle tone.

And there is about him – in the way he carries himself – a hint of the fires that burn inside him. You might say that Percy Jackson is good looking, but that would hardly cover it. With his tousled black hair and sea-green eyes and crooked smile, you'd notice him in any crowd.

But when you add to these the careless way he shakes his black hair out of those sea-green eyes and the way you can get lost in those eyes and the suggestion of danger that dances at the edge of that crooked smile, you've added the little things that makes the difference between a good looking guy and a heart-breaker.

Percy Jackson is a heartbreaker.

It is evident by the way the girls steal looks at him as he makes his way down the Goode High School crowded hallway.

Its three o'clock, Wednesday afternoon, and the halls are packed with students celebrating the end of another boring school day.

With his wiry, mysterious friend, Nico di Angelo on one side and mountainous Charles "don't call me Charles" Beckendorf on the other side, and a pack of their accomplices trailing behind him, Percy is leading the heart of the Goode High School "It Crowd" down the hallway.

Percy is on his way to swim practice. Beckendorf off to football (although he is anything but a "goon"). And Nico, well Nico just hangs around and is constantly amused at the fact that his best friend is considered God's gift to Goode High.

All of a sudden, Emma Finnegan appears on Beckendorf's left. She is a pretty, fresh-faced little thing, a dancer with a dancer's body and a thick braid of chestnut hair that hangs to her waist.

"Hi, Emma," says Percy.

"Looking good," says Nico.

"Can I talk to you?" asks Emma.

"You can talk to me," Nico volunteers.

"Um, Nico, who'd want to talk to you?" jokes Beckendorf.

"Okay," says Percy. "But I have to get to practice."

"Or coach will spank him" says Nico.

"It'll just take a second," says Emma.

"Go ahead," Percy tells Nico and Beckendorf. "I'll catch up with you later."

"Yeah," says Nico, looking at Emma and shaking his head, "But will _I _ever catch up with _you_?"

"What are you, kidding?" says Beckendorf.

Nico gives him a death stare.

Beckendorf shakes his head. "Come on!" he says. "Give 'em some room, eh?"

As the posse moves off, Percy and Emma drift over to a spot near the lockers that line the walls.

"I thought you were going to call me," says Emma.

"I never said that," Percy reminds her.

"I know. I just thought you would."

"Sorry."

"You had a good time, didn't you?"

"Yes," says Percy. But he's not thinking about their last date, the Saturday before last. He's thinking about their first date, the Saturday before that.

He's remembering that their first date wasn't really a date, more of a pickup, something that happened at the end of a party. He had been dancing with Emma and Emma danced so well and looked so hot as she danced, he'd fallen a little bit in love with her.

He did that, Percy. He fell a little bit in love quite a lot – with girls he'd known for years, girls like Emma, who he'd suddenly see in a new light. Hell, he even did it with strangers he passed on the street or saw through the window of a passing bus. The problem was, it never lasted long, his falling a little bit in love. Usually, no more than a couple of dates and often less. It never developed into something deeper or longer lasting. Percy didn't know why, exactly it happened like that. It bothered him a lot. Especially the tears.

He can see them now, welling up in Emma's sweet, dow-like brown eyes. He can see Emma fighting them back, trying to keep them from spilling over and running down her cheeks. She does not want to be seen standing there in the middle of the hallway, crying over Percy Jackson.

"Emma, I think you are a really nice girl," Percy tells her.

"Too nice," Emma says.

"No."

"But?"

"But…." says Percy

The first time, everything had been fine, great actually. They had left the party and gone back to Emma's apartment and danced some more and had a few laughs and kissed good night at the door. And that was it. But something changed between the first date and the second. Maybe it was something that Emma read into the good night kiss. Or maybe it was just that the second date was more like an actual date and not just a pickup. Whatever it was, by the second date, Emma was no longer the girl Percy had fallen a little bit in love with the week before.

In just a week, Emma transformed herself into a drowning woman who spent the whole night clutching to Percy and clinging to him, like he was the only lifeguard in sight. And he should know how that feels since he has been a lifeguard since he was fifteen.

The strange thing was, as close as she stuck to him (and it was pretty damn close) and as tightly she held on to him, Emma never noticed that he was sinking beneath her 90 pound frame.

"The fact is," says Percy, "I haven't been calling anybody lately. I haven't been going out at all. Well, except with the guys, ya know?"

Although it's the honest-to-gods truth and Percy is being as sincere as he knows he can be. Emma does not buy it. She just thinks Percy is being nice.

"I thought you liked me," she says.

"I do," Percy tells her. "Really, I think you are terrific. It's just that I don't – "

"I thought you _liked_ me!" Emma is bawling now and, unable to stop the tears and humiliation, she turns and races down the hallway.

Percy watches Emma run away and he feels like a jerk. Not because he led Emma on. He didn't! He didn't lead her on! He didn't make her any promises and he did not take advantage of her. Not the slightest. So why does he feel like such a jerk? Why does he _always_ end up feeling like a jerk?

As he turns and moves down the hallway, hurrying to catch up with his buddies, Percy tells himself, "No more." It's over. He's made himself a promise and he intends to stick to it. Until he can figure out a way of avoiding the waterworks and feeling like a jerk, he's not starting anything. Until he's worked out a better way of going about it, there will be no more girls for Percy Jackson. As much as he liked girls and enjoys their company, they are just too damn complicated, too anxious to get involved, too easily hurt, too –

At that moment, as if he needed further convincing, Percy catches the sight of the one exception that proves the rule – Calli Forbes-Buchanan. She is standing by her locker, talking with her friend Natalie Montgomery.

Calli Forbes-Buchanan. Quite simply, she is everything a man could ask for. She's not just very beautiful and very intelligent and very sweet. She is also exactly who she pretends to be. She isn't the least bit phony. She is _real_.

And, of course, because she is all of these things, Calli Forbes-Buchanan, is also "taken." The lucky man is Jack Hamilton – the son of Senator John T. Hamilton, Sr. (Republican – N.Y.), the president of last year's senior class, the captain of last year's swim team and one fourth of the famous Kimball-Monroe-Jackson-Hamilton distance medley relay team. It was through swimming that Percy first met Calli and was able to see what a great girl she was and what a lucky son of a gun Jack was.

Jack's luck has held on, too. Even though he's off for his freshman year at the University of Texas and left Calli behind, she belongs to him. Calli is still what she was when Percy first met her and what she will probably always be – "taken."

Anywho, right now, Calli looks up from her conversation with Natalie, looks down the hallway, sees Percy walking towards her and greets him with a smile. It's just a friendly smile, a long-distance, "Hey there!" But, like always, its effect on Percy is devastating. He has to clear his throat, so his voice won't catch in it when he says, "How's Jack?"

"Super," says Calli. "How's Percy?"

Percy does not break stride. He merely slows down as he passes by.

"Oh, you know," he says. "How's Calli?"

"Oh," she says, "you know."

"Yeah," says Percy.

He's past her now, looking back but moving forward.

"Are we going to beat Exeter?" Calli calls out to him.

Percy calls back to her, "If you'd like."

"I'd like," she says.

"Done and done," says Percy. "Be good!"

Reaching the stairwell, Percy hurries down the stairs, wondering why on earth he told Calli to be good. Considering how _wonderful _she is, for Calli to be merely _good_, she'd need to have an off day. But then, he couldn't very well have told her to be _wonderful_, could he? She would have thought he was crazy, wouldn't she? And just because Jack Hamilton's girl has him talking to himself, that doesn't mean he's crazy, does it?

"Hell, no!" he shouts, and vaulting down to the bottom of the stairs, he takes off, running full-out down the hallway until he crashes through the doors to the locker room and disappears from sight.

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**A/N:** **As you can now see, I will be alternating between Annabeth and Percy and their respective adventures. The plan is to have one chapter dedicated to just one character, but I may combine a chapter if need be. Part of the idea is from the book, "Breaking Up is Hard to Do" from Bruce and Carol Hart published in 1987. I don't own that book, or PJO. I just own my plot, words and ideas.**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading! MFP**


	4. Chapter 3  Annabeth

**Chapter Three – Annabeth**

Annabeth took off, racing down the hallway. It was lunch hour, a few seconds before noon on Friday, but she was not racing towards the cafeteria. With the kind of stuff they served in Westport High School cafeteria that was the last place anyone in their right mind would ever race to.

No, what set Annabeth into motion was what she was running from. And what she was running from was her history teacher and head of the Drama Club, Mr. Brunner. Annabeth felt a little guilty with running away from Mr. Brunner because he was confined to a wheelchair and was not able to duck and weave his way through the crowded hallway like Annabeth can.

"It's entirely his stupid fault." Annabeth thought angrily to herself. Even though everyone is so proud of her for being named the (first female) director for _The Philadelphia Story _it was not an honor she wanted bestowed upon her at first. Annabeth is perfectly happy with the behind the scenes part of the Drama Club. Annabeth loves to draw, design and create. Her sets for last year's production of _Kiss Me, Kate_ are still talked about. To Annabeth, the sets are the unsung hero in any play. A well designed stage can make or break a production. Annabeth already had sketch books full of ideas for 1930's Philadelphia when Mr. Brunner called her into his office almost two months ago. Annabeth was all set to "Wow" Mr. Brunner with her ideas when he cleared his throat and started with his typical opening, "Annabeth, dear."

Dear Annabeth sat there not knowing what she was about to get herself into.

"Annabeth, dear," started Mr. Brunner, "I know you how talented you are artistically, but I really want you to try and spread your wings a bit this year. I want you to take a different role for this year's production."

At first, Annabeth was scared stiff that Mr. Brunner was going to tell her that shehad to be _in _the play. Oh no! Oh no, no, no, no, no! But then he dropped an even bigger bomb.

"Annabeth, dear. I want you to direct," said Mr. Brunner.

"Direct? Direct?" Annabeth couldn't help but notice that her voice went up a few octaves when she said that.

"Yes, Annabeth. Direct! Your dream is to attend New York University, isn't it? It is a very prestigious program and not an easy one to get into. If you want to attend, you need to show the admissions department that you can handle both sides of a production. Being a director, especially the first female director at a school such as Westport High School, will speak volumes to your capabilities as an artist and as a student."

"But what do I know about being a director?" asked Annabeth.

"Plenty my dear girl, plenty," Mr. Brunner explained, "you have vision, you have passion and you know how to get people to listen to you. Plus you are never afraid to take on a challenge once it has been given to you. All of these are traits that needed in a director."

And before Annabeth could think of an argument as to why this was an absolutely silly idea, Mr. Brunner excused her from his office. In no time at all, the whole school was buzzing with the news that Annabeth Chase has been named the director of _The Philadelphia Story_.

To be honest, Annabeth started to love being a director. To have complete control over the vision of the play was intoxicating. To see her cast work hard and see all the pieces start to fit into place was a rush she hasn't felt in a long time. And then it all came crashing down the moment Ryan Crawford kissed the wrong girl and ended up with mono.

Annabeth knew that Mr. Brunner would want an update on the recasting of Mike Connor and she didn't want to lie to him. She hated lying even more than she hated being lied to, which she hated a lot. Truth be told, Annabeth was no closer to finding Mike Connor 2.0 than she was two days ago. But she didn't want to tell Mr. Brunner, or anyone else for that matter, the truth, either. She was afraid, if she admitted that she hadn't yet come up with anybody to play Mike Connor, everybody would panic. And she knew that panic – a close relative to stage fright – was the last thing in the world any of them needed.

Once she knew that the coast was clear, Annabeth made her way to the cafeteria.

"Time to face the music. Maybe they won't ask me about Mike Connor" Annabeth said out loud to no one.

As soon as Annabeth slid into a chair opposite her friend Katie Gardner, Katie said, "Did you get anybody yet?"

_So much for no one asking me_, thought Annabeth.

"I hear they're gonna have to cancel the show," said Grover in a panicky voice.

"Grover! They are not going to cancel the show," said Annabeth.

"Then you go somebody?" asked Lily Davies

"More or less," Annabeth lied.

Then, before anybody could ask her who she'd gotten, she looked over at the food on Katie's tray and asked, "What's the swill du jour?"

Katie looked down at the unappetizing mess on her tray. "The usual," she said. "Warmish meat and glue-ish gravy."

"Yum," said Lily.

And just as Annabeth hoped, everybody was off to the races, complaining about the steady stream of indigestible inedibles the cafeteria spewed out every day for lunch.

"We need more vegetarian options," started Grover.

"Yes, and a full salad bar. Limpy iceberg lettuce and rotten tomatoes are not a salad bar," said Katie.

"And enchiladas! Lots and lots of enchiladas!" exclaimed Grover.

"Grover," shouted Lily. "You are drooling all over my chemistry notebook."

Happy to be out of the spotlight, Annabeth turned to her attention to her lunch bag and her Greek yogurt. Annabeth loved everything Greek – yogurt, literature, architecture. Her dad even let her try Ouzo once. She has a worn out poster of the Parthenon on her bedroom wall that she has had since she was a little girl. It was a gift from her grandfather, Spero. That poster is what started Annabeth on the journey as a designer. And then when she started to read Greek mythologies and plays, the worlds of theater and design collided and consumed Annabeth. And that led to her directing….

Ah! No more thinking about the play for the time being. Annabeth started to play with a lock of her hair and tried to lose herself in the debate about free range chickens that was brewing between Lily and Grover.

"I don't care if it's more humane. Eating animals is wrong," said Grover.

"It's all about The Circle of Life, Grover," said Lily.

While looking at her lock of hair, Annabeth had to wonder when was the last time she had it cut. It seems like this play has consumed her life. It's not like Annabeth is a girly girl, but she does like to take a little pride in her appearance. She just doesn't go around flaunting her goodies for all the guys to ogle over.

Annabeth is tall and slender and people often say she is pretty. As a matter a fact, she did have a pretty face – oval shaped, with lightly tanned skin as smooth as porcelain. Her hair, which is long but she often wore in a ponytail, is honey blond and with a hint of auburn highlights where it has been kissed by the sun. She had an impertinent little nose and sensuous mouth, whose natural expression was a slightly mischievous grin.

But the feature that people always remember most when they think of Annabeth was her eyes. Steel grey and dazzling, Annabeth's eyes blazed with intelligence and glowed with humor and radiated life.

Out of the corner of those breath-taking eyes, she noticed a flurry of activity at the far corner of the cafeteria.

Without thinking, Annabeth picked up her things, rose from her chair and began to weave her way through the crowd to where the action was.

What had caught Annabeth's eye was Luke Castellan. A tall guy with sandy blond hair, twinkling blue eyes and a lopsided grin, Luke was the school's reigning prankster. What was most astonishing was that Luke hardly ever took credit for his escapades and he never got caught. Like the time he patched the filters into the intercom system so that when the principal, Mr. Dionysus, (aka Mr. D.) made the morning announcements, he sounded like a chipmunk stuck in a coal mine. No one knew for sure it was Luke who did it. Or the time someone covered all the school hallways with hay and then let a whole bunch of chickens loose. No one, not even the Connecticut State Police could prove that Luke was the mastermind behind it all.

Just what Luke might be up to this time, Annabeth couldn't guess. Luke and his usual sidekicks, Connor and Travis Stoll and Chris Rodriquez, had hustled into the cafeteria carrying a giant black trunk, on the side of which they stenciled "Woks Up?"

Abandoning their "warmish meat and glue-ish gravy," a number of students have risen from their tables and hurried to gather around Luke, Connor, Travis and Chris.

Moving with lightening speed, Luke persuaded a group of students to turn their table over to them. Then, popping the trunk open, he whipped out a long white linen tablecloth, snapped it open with a flick of his wrists and settled it over the table.

Next out of the trunk were an array of wooden bowls piled high with red bell peppers, yellow onions, sugar-snapped peas, and snow-white bean sprouts.

Then came a carving board, bearing a king-size slab of lean red beef.

After that there were bottles of soy sauce and sesame oil, followed by stacks of paper plates, napkins and piles of plastic forks and knives.

To cap it all off, Luke pulled out an enormous, tapering, round-bottomed aluminum pot – a wok. At Luke's nod, Connor plugged it in. At the same time, all four guys pulled out bandanas that looked straight out of _The Karate Kid_ from their back pockets and tied them around their heads.

Then, as Annabeth moved in closer, Luke swung into action- oiling up the wok; carving up the beef into thin strips, slicing the peppers and onions; grabbing up fistful of peas and sprouts; heaping everything into his sizzling wok; stirring and seasoning and serving up his mouth-watering creation – doing everything at once and all of it asfastasthat!

As soon as the students realized what Luke was up to, a cheer went through the crowd. People started lining up to be served. Travis began passing out a basket, soliciting 'contributions.' Chris docked his iPod into a wireless speaker system and flooded the cafeteria with soothing "Sounds from a Japanese Garden." While Luke was busy chopping, stirring and even flipping food into the open mouths of the drooling students in front of him, Connor started to give a running commentary, with Japanese accent and all.

The whole thing was like a party – a giant, impromptu lunch party. Students were having a blast sharing their plates of Luke's tasty creation and laughing every time Connor would say, "Soy! Soy! Soy!" And Annabeth witnessed it all. Right up to the time Mr. D. showed up with the security guards.

However, with his uncanny sense of timing, Luke somehow anticipated the appearance of the riot police and, moments before their arrival, he and his accomplices had packed up all their stuff and fled the scene of the crime. As a result, by the time Mr. D. stormed into the cafeteria, there was nothing to be seen but a bunch of kids grazing over their stir-fried lunches, as peaceful and content as a flock of sheep in a meadow. With no armed riot to quell, Mr. D. was sorely disappointed.

"Where'd you get that?" he demanded, pointing to the food on Jesse Cloherty's plate.

Jesse looked up at him, smiled and said, "From a friend."

Everybody cheered.

Wheeling on the crowd, Mr. D. announced, "No one is allowed to prepare or serve food in this cafeteria without my permission." Then, turning back to Jesse he continued, "Nor is anyone allowed to _eat_ food that has been prepared and served in this cafeteria without my permission."

Looking up at Mr. D., Jesse nodded and raised a finger to his mouth and said "Do you want me to put it back?"

Everybody almost died.

Mr. D., turning a violent shade of violet, bellowed, "No! I do not!"

With that, accompanied by the security guards, Mr. D. turned on his heels and marched out of the cafeteria.

After he was gone, everybody waited a respectful five seconds before they broke out laughing and cheering.

Annabeth, while cheering with her fellow classmates, was smiling for another reason. She just may have found the solution to her problem.

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**A/N: Many thank you's to those of you who have added me to your Favorites/Alerts. And for those who sent reveiws, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to do that. I will answer all reviews by this weekend. The next chapter will be about Percy and it should be up in the next few days.**

**Thank you for taking the time to enjoy this story.**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading! MFP**


	5. Chapter 4  Percy

**Chapter 4 – Percy**

An easy meet. The swim meet against Exeter Academy was supposed to be "easy." Well, it seems like someone forgot to tell Exeter. A pretty boy private school near Westchester, no one really took Exeter too seriously. However, they'd gotten themselves up for the meet against Goode and, right from the start, they gave Percy Jackson and his teammates a run (or swim) for their money.

The first event was the 200 medley relay. This was the event that made Neil Kimball, Noah Monroe, Percy Jackson and Jack Hamilton household names the year before. Neil started with the backstroke, Noah followed with the breast stroke, Percy with the butterfly and then wrapping up with the Jack's lightening fast freestyle.

However, that was then and this is now. With Noah and Jack both off living the college dream, it was up to Neil and Percy to carry the relay team with two newbies - Patrick Connelly and Devon Murphy. Patrick and Devon have promise but were a bit green around the gills when it came to relays.

Neil started off strong and gave Patrick at least a full body length lead. Call it nerves or just bad luck, but by the time Patrick ended and Percy began, their team was fighting just to place. Percy was able to push them into third place but then Devon hesitated too much coming off the blocks and by the time he hit the wall, Percy's relay team finished a disappointing fourth.

That means the pressure was on for the rest of the team if they wanted to win the meet and go up 3-0 in conference standings. Percy was only supposed to swim the 200 medley relay and then 100 butterfly, but Coach Levine, in all his infinite wisdom, decided that Percy should replace Devon in the 400 freestyle relay – the race that ended the meet.

Percy sailed through the 100 butterfly and he was slowing closing in on Scott Webber's school record that has been around since 1987. A goal that everyone seems to be talking about, and Percy is trying to not think about at all.

When the 400 freestyle relay came around, Percy was filled with that nervous, tired energy that came from being at a swim meet all afternoon. His shoulders aching from his two previous events, Percy was poised on the blocks for when their third swimmer, Jeff Murduch, touched the wall. Goode was about half a body's length behind Exeter and Percy sprung of the blocks like a sling shot. Percy was poetry in motion as he finished the first 25 meters and when he pushed off the wall after 50 meters, it was no contest. Percy put it into fifth gear, kicked it up a notch, gave it the old college try – every cliché in the book - that by the last 25 meters, Percy could have switched to the side stroke and they still would have won.

With the victory secure and the conference title still within their reach, Percy was able to smile for the first time that whole meet.

But now the meet is over. Now, the cheering of the crowd has faded. The pats on the backs and fist pumps and the horsing around the locker room – all a memory.

Percy takes his time dressing. Lingering at his locker, he's lagging behind the last of his teammates and stolen a moment to just sit by himself and be with himself. But now the moment's past.

Rising from the bench, he moves out of the locker room and down the empty hallway to the football stadium.

Beckendorf and the rest of the Goode High School football team were ready to take the field against Macon High School.

"Ready to zone out and be a spectator for a few hours?" ask Nico, who has saved Percy a seat in the bleachers.

"You have no idea," said an exhausted Percy. "Wake me if anything exciting happens."

"You know Beckendorf will kick the crap out of you if you fall asleep during one of his games again."

"Yeah, well maybe the athletic department shouldn't put swim meets on the same day as Goode's very own Friday Night Lights."

"Fair point. If you fall asleep this time, try not to drool into the popcorn. I know we are best mates, but eating your spit is not one of the ways I want to express our bromance."

"You got it, bud. Now go back to leering over the cheerleaders like the creepy emo you are."

Its a few hours later and the final score is Goode 34, Macon 28. Percy, Nico and the overly jubilant Goode High Schoolers are off to the gym for the Victory Dance. As dances go, the Victory Dance isn't much. The local band, Zero to Nowhere, are fumbling through cover versions of the latest hits and a bunch of kids are dancing and goofing around. But still, this is the place to be after a football game. Especially if you're looking for a last-minute date for the night.

Not that Percy is here to pick up a date. Not with the memory of Emma Finnegan, bursting into tears and running off down the hallway, still fresh in his mind. Not when he's decided it's about time he gave the girls – and himself – a break.

The truth is, Percy does not know why he's here. Except he hasn't got anywhere to go but home, and he isn't ready for that. Actually, he isn't really ready for much of anything. He tells himself that what's he is feeling is nothing but the usual after-the-meet-is-over blues, the letdown you expect to feel when you're coming down off all the intensity and excitement of a meet.

But he doesn't quite believe it. Because he knows that feeling. He feels it after every meet, week after week. And this – what he's feeling now – isn't exactly that. What he's feeling now is something else, something different, something he can't quite put a finger on or give a name to. But still, that's what he's trying to do, to give a name to whatever it is that's weighing on his spirit, when he hears this cheerful voice behind him saying, "What kind of stroke can you use on toast?"

It's Rachel Elizabeth Dare's way of saying hello.

"I don't know Red," says Percy. Turning around he greets Rachel with a smile. "What kind of stroke can you use on toast?"

With that dead-serious way she has of cracking a joke, Rachel bats her green eyes just once and says, "BUTTER-fly!"

"Oh hardy har har har!" says Percy, and in that dead-serious way he has of cracking a joke, he says, "That really stinks."

"Yeah," says Rachel. "That's why I like it."

"Yeah," says Percy. "Me, too."

Rachel laughs.

And Percy does, too. Because he likes Rachel. He always has. Not as a girlfriend. Although once – one sunny day at the beach in Montauk a long time ago – there was a time. But before then and since – as a person – Percy's always liked Rachel.

Okay, maybe she _is_ a little too _friendly_, but so what? There are a whole lot of worse things to be. And if, like she says, she'd "rather be a slave to passion than a slave to fashion" – well, Percy's got no qualms with that, either.

But on the other hand, just because he likes Rachel and respects her for her insistence on being exactly who she is, warts and all, that does not mean he is up for the party she is throwing tonight. Not that it wouldn't be fun to celebrate today's victories with his teammates and the football team as well. However, Percy is afraid, if he goes to Rachel's party, feeling the way he does, he's a pretty good bet to wind up either incredibly drunk or incredibly in-the-mood or most probably both, before the night is through.

Standing with Rachel at the side of the dance floor, he pictures himself, later that night, staggering around Rachel's house, leering hungrily at every girl in sight. It is not what you'd call a pretty picture. So, even though he has no plans at all, when Rachel says, "Will I see you later?" Percy tells her he's sorry, but he's got other plans.

And Rachel smiles like she knows what kind of plans Percy has and she says, "Why don't you bring her along?" And before Percy can explain that there _is_ no her, he sees _her!_

"I'll be damned!" he says.

Rachel follows Percy's gaze across the dance floor, where Callie Forbes-Buchanan has just walked in with Natalie Montgomery and Natalie's boyfriend, Dan Shoemaker. As far as Percy can remember, this is the first time that Callie has showed up at a Victory Dance since last year, when she used to drop in with Jack Hamilton.

"I wonder what she's doing here," says Rachel.

"Probably horny," says Nico. Laughing at his own joke, he steps up to beside Rachel and joins the party. Only Rachel gives Nico a look and Percy doesn't crack a smile, so Nico says, "Hey! With Jack off at Texas, what do you expect? I mean, she's only human, isn't she?"

"Is she?" asks Rachel.

"I don't know," says Percy, who hasn't taken his eyes off Callie since he spotted her.

"I guess you'd have to ask Jack," says Nico, laughing again. "Hey Perce! Where you going?"

Percy's decided, as long as Callie's here, he ought to be friendly and say hello. He imagines, without Jack around, she must be feeling pretty lonely. Although, he reminds himself as he moves across the floor to her, if ever a girl didn't need to feel lonely for one second more than she wanted to, it's Callie Forbes-Buchanan.

It's outrageous how truly beautiful Callie is. On a purely objective level. On the one hand, she's slender and leggy with almond eyes and caramel-colored hair. She has the civilized, cultured, demure air of a debutante. Like right now, with her hair loose around her shoulders so that it frames her pretty face with its finely chiseled features and its ivory-smooth skin and sets off her dazzling eyes, she reminds Percy of some goddess, sprung from the pages of Greek mythology. Or some legendary heroine of an historical romance novel – the Untamed Beauty with a Fiery Temper and the heaving bosoms…

"Thanks," she says, when she sees Percy approaching her.

Snapping himself out of his fantasy, Percy says, "Huh?" Then, as if he'd just notice Callie, he says, "Oh, hi." And then he says "_Thanks?"_

Callie smiles at him, as if she hasn't noticed he's acting like a total idiot.

"For beating Exeter," she reminds him. "Remember?" You said you'd beat them if I liked?"

"Oh, yeah," says Percy. "I did say that, didn't I?"

"Are you alright?"

"Sure," says Percy. "Shoulders a little sore and the eyes still sting from the chlorine, but nothing too major. How are you?"

"Not too bad. I heard what you did in the meet. Stepping up to swim the anchor in the 400 relay. That must have taken a lot guts. You should be proud," she says.

"Aw, shucks! It was nothing." says Percy, covering his real embarrassment with a goofball grin.

Changing the subject, Percy says "How come you decided to….?" He nods toward the dance floor.

"Natalie's idea," says Callie. "She loves to dance and Dan is a klutz, so…"

Suddenly, just looking at Callie, he can't think what else to say. He has completely forgotten every word in the entire English language. A very long moment passes with him just standing there, smiling at her, until – desperate to say _something, anything_ – he finds himself saying goodbye.

"Well," he says, edging toward the door, "it's nice seeing you. But I guess I'd better be going. So take care, now. And say hi to Jack next time you talk to him, okay? Okay, then. Bye."

And he's out the door and standing in the hallway and wondering what the hell he's doing there and what he ought to do now. He can't go back inside. Not after he's just told Callie he had to leave. But now he thinks of it, there's no point in his going back inside anyway. Whatever it was he came here to do, he's probably done it by now or, if he hasn't, he's probably better off just leaving it alone.

So he heads upstairs to his locker, where he's left the book he's been reading – _Catcher In The Rye_. It's a great book and the way the night is shaping up, it looks like a good book and a hot bath is about as good as it's going to get. Which, when he thinks about it, isn't really all that bad. In fact, by the time he's grabbed the book out of his locker and gotten back downstairs, he's actually feeling pretty all right about his plans for the evening. In fact, as he walks out of the school's front door, the nameless depression he was feeling just a few minutes before is showing signs of lifting.

Or maybe it's just the lift that he gets when he sees Callie standing at the curb waving goodbye to Natalie and Dan, as their taxi moves off down the street. As Callie turns to look for another taxi, Percy calls out to her, "You'd probably have better luck at the corner."

Smiling, as if just the sight of Percy somehow amused her, Callie says, "I was just thinking the same thing."

So they walk to the corner together and, when Callie decides to keep walking – because it's such a beautiful evening, it's a shame to waste it sitting in the back of a taxi – Percy decides to keep walking, too. It doesn't matter that he lives on the West Side, only a couple of blocks from school, and Callie lives all the way across the park on the East Side, because Callie right, it is a beautiful evening. The air is crisp and clear, like it sometimes gets when its' autumn in New York. Like it's blown in from somewhere high in the Adirondack Mountains. And the full moon shines with a brilliance that makes everything radiant, more real than real, and more beautiful than you'll remember it, once the evening is past.

Percy wishes he had his camera with him. No, not the silly camera that comes with his Android phone. He means his Nikon D700 digital camera. His "memory maker," as his father called it when he gave it to him, just before he moved out and started turning himself into a memory. Callie in this light? Callie kicking up a pile of colorful autumn leaves? Callie smiling at the people she passes? Those are images a guy wants to hold on to forever.

But here's the most amazing thing, the really exceptional thing – for Percy, looking at Callie, as terrific as it is, is less than half the fun of being with Callie. Once you get past how beautiful she is and get over trying to impress her with what a stud you are, Callie is great company. She's really comfortable to just walk along with. And really easy to talk to.

"Party tonight?" she asks Percy.

"No. Not tonight," Percy answers.

Callie laughs and gives him a look. "Seriously," she says.

"Yeah," says Percy, dismissing it with a shrug. "I mean, there is one – at Rachel's. But I'm not going."

"What?" She says it like she's amazed. "Percy Jackson? Passing up a party? I thought you were the party animal!"

It's an old game, one they used to play when Percy hung out with Callie and Jack last year during swim season. Callie and Jack were always kidding him about all his parties and all his girls. The way it went, Jack always pretended he was jealous of Percy and Callie pretended she felt sorry for all the girls whose hearts he was breaking. She used to say it would catch up with him. If he didn't settle down, she'd tell him, someday when he least expected it some little girl was going to come along and break his heart.

"I've put all that behind me," says Percy.

"Uh-huh."

"No, I have," says Percy. "At least for awhile. I've kind of dropped out of the scene."

Callie doesn't say anything for a second, but from the smile on her face and the look in her eye, Percy can see she doesn't believe a word of what he's just told her.

"So, where _are_ you going tonight?"

"Home," says Percy. But then, when he realizes how pathetic is sounds, he adds, "And then out to dinner with my father." Right away, Percy's sorry he lied and sorrier still that it's his father, of all people, who he's chosen to lie about. If there's anything he doesn't feel like talking about, especially now, it's his father." But he doesn't have to worry about it because – as if she'd guessed how he feels – Callie says, "Oh. That's lovely." And lets it go at that.

And then, somehow, as they continue to amble through the park, conversation swings away from Percy to Callie. Maybe Callie swings it or maybe it just swings itself, but either way, Percy is happy to let Callie carry the ball for awhile. She's a pretty good talker and what she's got to talk about – the life she leads and the life she's led – is pretty fascinating. Not to mention enviable.

Callie's father, Charles T. Buchanan, is a titan on Wall Street. With that power and privilege, Callie lives the life Percy can only dream of. Ever since Callie was old enough to travel, her father's been taking her and her mother with him all over Europe, South America, Japan and the Middle East – just to name a few. So, as a result, Callie has been to all these incredible places and met all these incredible people and seen all these incredible things – which can make a person incredibly interesting, especially to a shmuck like Percy, who has yet to set foot outside of the continental United States.

With one thing and another, although they spend the better part of an hour walking and talking, when Percy and Callie finally arrive at the Forbes-Buchanan townhouse – on East End Avenue, just across from Gracie Mansion – it seems to Percy like they've gotten there in no time at all.

Pausing at the bottom of the steep flight of stairs that leads up to her front door, Callie says, "Well, this is it."

Percy looks up at the stately four-story brownstone, at the ivy creeping up its handsome façade to its tiled roof. "Cute," he says.

"Be it ever so luxurious," says Callie.

"Yeah," says Percy.

And then, for the first time since the dance, there's one of those awkward moments when Percy doesn't know what to say next and Callie just stands there smiling at him, while the time lumbers by.

Finally, Callie says, "It isn't true, is it? What you said? About not going out?"

Percy shrugs and says, "It's only been a couple of weeks, but, yeah."

Callie looks at him, like she still isn't sure if he's just kidding or if he's really being serious.

"I mean, it isn't like a vow, or anything," Percy tells her. "It isn't supposed to go on forever, but…" He pauses a moment, wondering if he should go on. "I don't know," he says. "It always starts out being one thing and winds up being something else."

"Always?" Callie asks.

Percy nods and says, "Sooner or later."

"So you quit?" she asks.

"What's the point?" he asks.

She looks sad and sympathetic. Another one of those long silences comes and goes. She smiles a sad little smile and says, "I guess that kind of puts us in the same boat, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," says Percy. "I guess it does, doesn't it?" He's never thought about it that way. "You'd think…?" he says. But he stops himself. It's a crazy idea.

"What?"

"No," says Percy. "It's too dumb."

"What is?"

"Oh," he says, "I was thinking. If Jack wouldn't mind. And you wouldn't. I mean, maybe we – you and me – maybe we could not go out together sometime."

Callie doesn't laugh. She just looks at him for a second and then she says, "You mean, like, just hang out?"

"Yeah," says Percy. "Like this."

Callie thinks about it. She looks down at the ground and then back at Percy and she says, "I don't know."

"Yeah," says Percy. "I told you it was a dumb idea."

"No," says Callie. "I mean, maybe it is."

"Well. It's no big deal."

"No. I know."

"But you know," says Percy, shrugging like it is not big deal, "if it's all right and you feel like it sometime, we could try it – not going out together."

Callie smiles. "I'll not think about it," she says.

"Good," says Percy. "Don't."

"I won't," she promises. "Thank you for walking me home, Percy."

"Sure," he says. "It's the best time I haven't had in a long time.

She laughs and says, "Bye."

Percy watches her as she turns and hurries up the stairs and lets herself in her door. Then he turns and walks away. After he's taken a few steps, he finds himself whistling. A few more steps more and he recognizes the tune. It's Howard Jones, "No One Is To Blame."

* * *

**A/N: I know that this was the longest chapter so far, but had to cover a bit of the back story and set the ground work for what will be coming soon. Thank you for taking the time to read. Reviews, comments, etc. are always welcomed.**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading! MFP**


	6. Chapter 5  Annabeth

**Chapter 5 – Annabeth**

Luke was a hero. His little caper in the cafeteria did it. Due to all the photos and videos that were being posted on Facebook, Luke was soon given the name "Wokman."

Up until Friday, Annabeth never really thought about Luke at all. They did not travel in the same social circles. But when his face started to be plastered online, she saw – for the first time – that he was actually rather good looking. He has a tangle of sandy blond hair that is cropped short. His cheekbones are high and prominent, which give his cheeks that hollow look you sometimes see in high-fashion models. His jaw is strong and his mouth – with its slightly pouty lips – seemed always on the verge of an ironic smile. But it was Luke's eyes, his funny-sad eyes, gazing out at Annabeth from her laptop screen, which finally got to her. She'd never looked into Luke's eyes before. She had the distinct impression there was somebody vulnerable and caring behind the super cool wiseguy in Luke's eyes.

So on late Sunday night as she was lying in bed, trying not to think about Mike Connor, it suddenly came to her – as smart and funny, as nervy and as cute as he was, Luke might make a perfect Mike Connor.

Luke was smart enough to learn his lines quickly. And funny enough to see the humor in the part he was playing. And daredevil enough to risk getting up on stage and making a fool of himself in front of a bunch of strangers.

And if those weren't reasons enough for Annabeth to go after Luke, there was the fact that opening night was only five days off and, as hard as she'd tried, she hadn't been able to think of anybody other than Luke who might be able to act the part and might be willing to take it.

"Are you insane?" asked Grover.

Annabeth caught up with him Monday morning. Before she tracked Luke down and popped the fateful question, she'd better try her "inspiration" on someone whose opinion she respected.

"Why would a guy like Luke Castellan ever be caught dead on stage? I think all the stress is causing you to have a breakdown," said Grover. "You should go talk to Mr. Brunner."

"I am not having a breakdown and we don't have the time nor the need to talk to Mr. Brunner."

"There is a world of difference between showing off in the school cafeteria and acting. On a stage. In front of an audience. That paid money. And…"

"Okay, Grover. I get the point!" exclaimed Annabeth.

"There simply has to be somebody better around," he concluded. "Anybody would be better. Even _me!_"

Annabeth couldn't help but throw her arms around Grover and give him a big hug. Sweet, tender Grover who gets nervous speaking up in class offering to be her Mike Connor. Annabeth was grateful to be reminded, especially at a time like this, as long as there were still people like Grover around, chivalry was not dead.

"Wish me luck?" she asked him.

"Luck will hardly do," he replied. "What you're after is a miracle!"

"Wish me a miracle?"

Raising his eyes skyward, Grover replied, "Heaven help us!"

And with that benediction, Annabeth went awooing her "Wokman."

* * *

When Luke showed up for his Spanish class right after lunch – and just as the bell sounded, making Annabeth late for her class in European history – Annabeth was waiting for him outside the door.

Luke spotted her as he was coming down the hallway and then – although he'd never spoken to Annabeth before, and stopping to speak to her now would make him late for his class – Luke stopped in front of her and said, "I'm sorry, but Wokman is officially retired and I am not available to be reserved for weddings, funerals or Bat Mitzvahs."

Annabeth laughed. Luke was funny. And he was cute. And she knew he had nerves of steel. _But can he act?_ she wondered. _And will he?_

She took the plunge. "How would you like to be in a play?" she asked.

"Your play?" asked Luke.

"Phillip Barry's," Annabeth answered.

Luke smiled and shook his head. "No way," he told her.

She handed him the playbook.

"Read it," she said.

He took the playbook.

_Good, _she thought.

Luke looked at the playbook, then raised his eyes and looked all around him. "Here?" he asked

Annabeth laughed again. "The auditorium would be work just as well." Without another word, she turned and set off, on her way there.

Luke called after her, "Isn't it locked?"

Without looking back or breaking stride, Annabeth answered, "I have a key."

"Wait a minute!" Luke protested.

She turned to look at him. He was walking toward her, coming to join her.

_Yes_! She thought. She wouldn't dare say it. Or even let herself smile. She still had a very long way to go. As Luke caught up with her, Annabeth told him, "We don't have a minute. We go on Friday night."

As they moved together, through the hallways and down the stairs to the auditorium below, Luke asked Annabeth about the play and his part in it. She told him _The Philadelphia Story_ was an excellent play and that it starred Katherine Hepburn when it opened in March 1939. It had been delighting audiences and making stars out of the actors ever since. It was a funny, romantic comedy about a rich society girl who gets saved from marrying the wrong man by a down-to-earth reporter who – on the night before her wedding – teaches her the difference between being a perfect lady and a real woman.

Luke's part, the part of the reporter, Mike Connor, wasn't a long part, Annabeth told him – he didn't get the girl – but it was a big part, a pivotal part. The fate of the play, its success or failure – was in the hands of the actor who played it.

Luke smiled his smile at that. "Will it make me a star?" he asked.

Annabeth laughed. "It made Van Heflin."

"Who?"

"Did you ever see _Shane?"_

"Never even heard of it."

"You should see it. It's the best and he's in it."

"Van Halen?"

"Heflin," Annabeth corrected him. "Anyay, it's a great part. You are the guy who sweeps Tracy Lord off her feet. You are the one who gets to thaw out The Ice Queen."

"Oh, yeah?" Luke liked that, she could tell.

"She can't resist your good looks and manly charm."

Luke laughed. "You sure you have the right guy?" he asked.

"I wasn't," Annabeth admitted. "Until I saw how much you wanted to do it."

Annabeth unlocked the door to the auditorium, opened it, and stepped inside.

As he followed Annabeth into the auditorium, Luke asked, "What makes you think that?"

Annabeth didn't answer him. Instead, leading Luke down the aisle, past the rows of empty seats to the dimly lit stage below, she said, "What is it? The limelight? Or proving how smart you are by learning the part in such a short time? Or maybe you are a knight in shining armor, who just cannot say no to a damsel in distress?"

She led him up the steps at the side of the stage, crossed to a folding card table that was set up at the stage's front edge, and took a chair. Motioning Luke to take the chair opposite her, she said, "Just why _do you_ want to do it?"

"I don't!" said Luke. He sat in the chair opposite her. "I probably won't."

"Scared?" she asked.

He smiled his crooked smile.

"It's okay," Annabeth assured him. "Everybody is, the first time. It is the first time, isn't it?"

"I was in a Christmas pageant once," Luke told her. "In the manger scene. I played the mule." He laughed. It was a good laugh, a thoroughly delightful laugh.

"That's it?" she asked.

"How about you?" he asked. "Do you know what you are doing?"

"Page seventy-six," she told him. "I'll read Tracy. You read Mike."

"Mind if I read over it first?" he asked.

"No," she said. "Go ahead."

It was the most important scene in the play, the turning point, where down-to-earth Mike and upper-crust Tracy put their class prejudices aside and melt into each other's arms. By reading the scene with Luke, Annabeth would get a chance to see how he played both sides of Mike Connor's character – his rough exterior and the deeply romantic soul it conceals and protects. Sitting across the table from him – watching the emotions playing over his face, as he reads the scene over to himself – Annabeth wondered what kind of soul Luke's rough exterior was concealing and protecting.

"We kiss?" asked Luke, nearing the end of the love scene.

"Only in the _play,"_ Annabeth assured him.

Luke looked relieved! _What soul?_ Annabeth asked herself.

To Luke, she said, "Ready?"

He held up one finger as he breezed through to the end of the scene. Then, finishing, he looked up at Annabeth, shook his head, and said, "I can't do it."

Annabeth asked him if he'd had a good time at the party. Which was the way the scene between Tracy Lord and Mike Connor started.

Luke just looked at her for a second and then he nodded and said yes, he'd been richly entertained. Then he quickly flipped through his playbook, back to the start of the scene.

And they were off, playing the scene word for word, exactly the way Phillip Barry wrote it. Five minutes later, it was over – a little tipsy from champagne and Mike Connor's kiss, Tracy Lord was running off with him for a midnight dip in her heated swimming pool.

And that was it.

"Sorry," Luke said, scraping his chair back from the table.

"You were good!" said Annabeth. He'd been better than she'd hoped. Really good at the rough exterior part, but –

"But you can't let yourself get embarrassed by the romantic stuff," she told him. "At least, no more embarrassed than Mike Connor would be. Which I don't think would be very much. Reporters, you know, they were like the rock stars of the thirties." She thought he would find the comparison flattering. And judging by the self-conscious smile that flickered over his face, he did. But, apparently, winning Luke over was going to take more than flattery.

"Look, Annabeth," he said, "I appreciate being sprung from class and everything. And this has kind of been fun and everything. But, come on! Me? Doing this? In front of ten bajillion people? This Friday night? I'd love to help you out, but no thanks." He stood up and turned to leave.

"Do you know who's playing Tracy?" Annabeth asked him. It was her trump card, one she'd been hoping not to play.

"It doesn't matter," said Luke.

"Charlotte Davison," said Annabeth. Oh it mattered. She could see it.

"The new girl?" asked Luke.

_Crap!_ She thought. _He's taken the bait._ Annabeth hated herself for dangling Charlotte Davison in front of Luke. But she hated Luke just as much for falling for it. _But then, _she wondered, _what red-blooded, pea-brained high school boy wouldn't fall for Charlotte Davison?_

A transfer student in their year, Charlotte was, without a doubt, the most beautiful girl anybody at Westport High School had ever seen. In fact, it was no surprise to anybody when the word got around that Charlotte had appeared on several episodes of _Gossip Girl_ the previous season earning her the right to be on the cover of both Teen Vogue and Cosmo Girl. Nor had anybody been very surprised at the way the boys (and some of the girls) fell all over each other – trying to find out Charlotte's name, her schedule, her cell number, her sign, _anything!_ – when she first showed up at school. And if, four weeks into the term, not one of Westport High School's home grown heroes had gotten anywhere near Charlotte, nobody was too surprised by that, either. Charlotte was, simply, out of their league. Which, of course – together with her beauty and her acting experience – made her the perfect Tracy Lord.

Well, not _quite_ perfect. Charlotte had been doing fine at portraying Tracy Lord's flawlessly polished exterior. But so far, Tracy's interior – the flesh-and-blood vulnerability that Mike Connor brings to the surface in the play's second act – had completely escaped her. Still, with five days left to go, Annabeth was confident she'd find a way to –

But did she have five days?

"I get to _kiss_ Charlotte Davison?" asked Luke, obviously thrilled at the very thought.

_If a girl is pretty enough,_ thought Annabeth,_ it doesn't matter if she's got a personality of a toxic waste dump. Boys will do anything to get next to her._ But she reminded herself of a line from Shakespeare – _"The play's the thing!"_ – and then she answered. "Twice."

"Excellent!" said Luke.

"Come on Wokman," sighed Annabeth. "We have a lot of work to do."

And Annabeth could not help but give a little silent _"thank you"_ to Grover and the heavens for this much appreciated miracle.

* * *

**A/N: Many heartful "thank you's" for the reviews to my story. I appreciate you letting me know what you like, do not like and any questions you may have about the story. The next chapter, which will be Percy, will be up by the weekend. Thank you for taking the time to read my story and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.**

**Until the next chapter...**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading, MFP**


	7. Chapter 6  Percy

**Chapter 6 – Percy**

"Holy swim workout, Batman!" bemoans Devon.

"Shouldn't it be 'Aquaman'?" jokes Patrick.

That causes a collective groan from the peanut gallery, aka the boy's swim team locker room. But Percy has to agree, that afternoon's swim practice was one for the record books.

And that is exactly what Coach Levine is chasing – Scott Webber's 100 meter butterfly record. Or more like that is what Coach Levine is having _Percy_ chase. Ever since Percy burst onto the swim scene his freshman year, everyone has been talking about Percy being the second coming of the Great Scott Webber – record holder, four time college All-American and six time Olympic medalist. Percy Jackson is on his way to greatness and everyone wants to be along for the ride.

"Hey Jackson," calls out Rick Boudreau, the team's athletic trainer, "Coach Levine wants to see you."

Everyone points at Percy and laughs.

"Uh oh, what did you do this time, Percy?" asks Devon

"He probably just wants my autograph," says Percy.

Everybody groans.

"Probably trying to impress his girlfriend," he says. "She probably doesn't believe he really knows me."

Everybody groans louder, as Percy turns and makes his way to the coach's office. On his way there, he finds himself imagining how his meeting with the coach will go. It isn't hard to imagine because it always goes the same way.

The first thing, when he walks into Coach Levine's office, the coach won't notice him. He'll be bent over his desk, pretending he's busy with paperwork. Then, when the coach does notice him, he'll act like he's surprised to see him. Then, as if he hadn't thought about it until just then, he'll suddenly "remember" Friday's swim meet. And "remembering" Friday's meet, he'll get this disgusted look on his face. And even though he's still younger than middle-age and stands six feet three and weights better than 200 pounds, he'll start to shake his head and clucking his tongue like a little old lady.

And then he'll say, "Jackson…" Like it's the name of his favorite grandson, who just got red-handed, passing top-secret government documents to Al Queda in an exchange for a thimbleful of crack. And that's all he'll say. Just "Jackson….."

Until Percy picks up his cue and says, "Yes, Coach?" Like he doesn't know what's coming. Then Coach Levine will take this as his cue to begin this week's lecture, covering everything Percy did wrong at Friday's meet and nothing he did right. Coach Levine will eventually conclude the lecture by warning Percy, if he doesn't shape up, "Greenfield is going to whip our butt on Friday and then you can kiss off that big-time college scholarship you've got your heart set on and everything that goes with it."

It is the same lecture Percy has been hearing week after week for the past three years. Except this year, there is a new twist. Coach Levine now throws in this little nugget. "You think you are good enough and fast enough to break Scott Webber's record? That record has been around for almost twenty-five years! It will take a lot of work and guts to break that record."

Which, as it turns out, is _almost_ exactly the way it actually goes.

"Well," says Coach Levine, leaning back from his desk and folding his hands behind his head. "What have you got to say for yourself?

Standing there, across the desk from the coach, Percy isn't exactly sure what he'd say for himself, if he actually spoke for himself. Deep in his heart, he isn't all sure he cares that much about breaking the record. He isn't sure that a big-time college scholarship and a big-time career as a big-time college athlete is what he really wants. He knows it's what everybody _thinks_ he wants – Coach Levine, his father and his mother and everybody else. He knows it's what everybody _expects_ him to want. He knows it's what everybody _wants_ him to want.

Because everybody wants the best for him, and being an All-American and Olympic swimmer with his face all over ESPN and _Sports Illustrated _seems to be everybody's idea of "the best." Things would be a lot simpler for Percy if he just agreed with everybody. But he's already spent the better part of his life being some kind of junior superstar and, more and more, especially lately, it's beginning to feel like junior superstardom – and "everything that goes with it" – isn't really all that much. In fact, he's beginning to suspect that even senior superstardom is a whole lot less than it's cracked up to be.

That's what he'd say for himself, if he actually spoke for himself. But there isn't much point in doing that here or now. For here and now, saying what the coach wants to hear will do.

"I'll try to do better this Friday," Percy tells Coach Levine. It's what he tells him every week. It's little enough to promise and, usually, it's enough to do the trick.

"You'd better," says Coach Levine. As usual.

"Right." With a nod, Percy turns to go.

"Aren't you going to ask me why?" says Coach Levine.

This is a new wrinkle in the script. The coach is improvising. Turning back to him, Percy says, "Why?"

Coach Levine does not answer right away. He just smiles. And then after a second he says, "Because Jason Sullivan is coming up for the University of Florida to see you swim, that's why."

"Oh, yeah?" says Percy.

It's the moment everybody's been waiting for. Percy's first chance to impress a big-time college swim coach. Jason Sullivan. If Percy can show him something this Friday, he can just go right on showing him and then rest of them more of the same, week after week, for the next four years. And, maybe, after that, if he's really good and he hasn't come up with something better to do with his life before then, he can go right on doing the same thing for another five or ten years – until his shoulders give out or some kid better than him knocks him off the pedestal everyone has put him on. And then….

"Yup," says Coach Levine, like the host of a game show, opening the curtain on a million-dollar prize, "this Friday, a big-time swim coach from a big-time school is flying in to take a look at you. What do you think of that?"

Percy half wishes he could muster a little enthusiasm for the coach's sake. But he can't. It's all he can do to sound halfway sincere when he says, "That's great, Coach. Thanks for telling me."

"And if he likes what he sees as much as I told him he would," says Coach Levine, "he might want to talk to you after the meet."

"Great," says Percy.

"Is your father going to be around after the meet?"

"He usually is."

"He'd want to talk to him, too," says Coach Levine. "If he likes what he sees. Will he?"

At this moment, Coach Levine reminds Percy of an animal trainer, holding out a cookie to his pet Yorkie, trying to get him to do a trick for it.

He tells the coach, "I'll try to do better than I did last week."

"You'd better," says Coach Levine.

"Is that it?"

Coach Levine nods. "See you at practice tomorrow."

Percy gives a tight smile and says, "Yes, Coach." And then he turns and walks out the door.

* * *

"Die, you scumbags! Die!" shouts Nico into Percy's earpiece.

It is later on Monday night and Percy is having his weekly "Guy Time." It's nothing flashy - just a bunch of the guys playing video games online. Lately, they have been obsessed with playing _Call of Duty_. Okay, more like Nico has been obsessed with playing it. The number of guys playing varies from week to week, but there is core of them that have been doing this for years. Tonight, it's Percy, Nico, Devon, Patrick, Beckendorf and two of Beckendorf friends, Connor and Travis Stoll. Percy has never met them but they were pretty good and their commentary was hysterical.

Right in the middle of Connor giving a play-by-play account in a German accent, Percy's cell phone starts to ring. He was half tempted to just let it roll over to voicemail but when he took at peak at the screen, he almost dropped his controller. The caller ID displayed "Callie." Quickly putting his headset on mute, Percy picks up his phone.

"Hello?"

"Percy? Um, hi. It's Callie."

"Uh, hi!"

Thinking he ought to say something more, Percy comes up with, "I was just thinking about you."

Except he comes up with it at exactly the same time that Callie is saying, "I guess you're wondering why I'm calling."

"No," says Percy, as Callie says, "You were?"

"Yes," says Percy, as Callie says, "You weren't wondering why I'm calling?"

They both laugh.

"Yes, I am," says Percy. "But I guess you're calling about what I was thinking about. Which is your not thinking about our not going out sometime. Right?"

Callie laughs, and says, "Nope."

Percy feels a surge of embarrassment.

"I want to know if you are going to beat Greenfield on Friday."

"Oh," says Percy, relieved to be back on familiar ground. "Sure, if you like." He wonders if he should tell her about the coach from Florida.

"I like," says Callie.

He decides he shouldn't.

"Done and done," says Percy.

"And," says Callie, "now that you mention it, I have been not thinking about our not going out sometime, too."

"Oh, yeah?" says Percy. "That's great. So, what do you think?" For a brief eternity, while Percy waits for an answer, Callie says nothing.

"Percy, where the heck are you?" comes Beckendorf's voice in his earpiece. "Did you overdose on blue Cherry Coke or something?"

"Yeah, Perce. We need your sniper skills on this next section," says Nico.

"Yezzz, where izz de Percy?" comes Connor, still in his German mode.

Suddenly, Callie says, like she'd rather not, but can't help it, "I don't think Jack would understand."

It's kind of what Percy's been expecting. Since last Friday, all the dozens of times he's imagining this conversation, how it might go, he's always known how it would probably go. But still, he'd always kind of hoped –

"If he knew," says Callie.

_If he knew!_ "Yes," says Percy, tiptoeing over the minefield that's suddenly opened before him. "But what if he didn't know? I mean, what would there be to know? That we went for a walk? Or had coffee? Or caught a movie? I mean, what's that?"

"It was fun," Callie admits, "being with somebody other than Natalie or Zoe for a change."

"Thanks?"

Callie laughs. "You know what I mean."

"Sure," he tells her. "I get kind of tired of hanging out with the guys myself. Not that they're not good guys or anything." _Even though they are ready to kill me if I don't get back to the game. But this is Callie!_

"It's not exactly stimulating," he tells her.

"Am I?" Callie asks.

"Yeah," he says. "Am I?"

"What am I afraid of?" she says, more to herself than to him.

"I don't know," says Percy.

"There's nothing wrong with it, is there?"

"Not that I can see."

A moment passes. And another.

"DUDE! WHERE ARE YOU?" simultaneously screams Nico, Berckendorf, et al.

"When were you thinking about?" Callie asks.

"I wasn't," Percy admits. "I mean, I hadn't got that far. But, well – " He tells himself, _Why not?_ "How about Friday night?"

"This Friday?" asks Callie.

"Yeah," says Percy. "I always have a hard time figuring out what to do at night, after a meet. You know, go out and celebrate with the guys. Or go home and veg out in front of the TV. But hanging out with you – I mean, if I knew I was going to – going to _be_, I mean - hanging out with you – then that'd be – you know – okay." He congratulates himself on being such a smooth talker.

"But Friday night…" she says.

He can hear her wavering.

"We wouldn't have to go anyplace where anybody would see us," he tells her. "If that's what you're worried about. We could go someplace else. Make it kind of test, you know? And then, that way, if everything's okay, which it will be, and you want to tell Jack about it, you can tell him you checked it out and it's no big thing, right?"

"Where would we go?" she asks him.

"To the movies?"

"As a test," she says.

"A free trial offer," Percy assures her.

"Well…." Percy hears her take a breath, hears her let it out, hears her say, "Okay."

To himself, he says, _I'll be damned!_ To Callie, he says, "So, I'll pick you up Friday night?"

"Okay."

"Around eight o'clock?"

"Okay."

"Will you be at the meet?"

"Okay. I mean, yes," she says. "I usually always go."

"Good," he says. "There's going to be a coach there. From Florida. Looking me over."

"That's great!"

"Yeah," says Percy, wondering why he's told her and feeling embarrassed that he has. "Where?"

"My house."

"About eight?"

"Okay."

"And Callie?"

"Yes?"

"Don't worry about it, okay?"

"Okay," she says. "And Percy?"

"Yes?"

"Good luck."

"Thanks."

"Good night, Percy."

"Good night, Callie."

As he hangs up the phone, Percy just sits there a moment. With his friends calling his name and saying if he doesn't get back to the game they are going to banish him from "Guy Time," Percy just sits there grinning like a madman. He tells himself its no big deal. Come Friday night, he and Callie are just going to go out and catch a movie. So what?

So nothing! People do it all the time. It doesn't mean a thing. So why is he sitting here, grinning like a madman? Huh? And just who does he think he's kidding?

* * *

**A/N: Thank you to my loyal readers and reviewers. I promise, the drama will start to pick up in the next couple of chapters. I hope to have the next chapter (Annabeth) posted in the next few days. As also, please review and let me know what you like, don't like or want to see. Have a great weekend!**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading, MFP**


	8. Chapter 7  Annabeth

**Chapter 7 – Annabeth**

There's an old saying in the theater. It says, 'if you have a lousy dress rehearsal, you're sure to have a great show.'

_If there's any truth to it_, Annabeth told herself, _I have nothing to worry about._

She didn't wait for the curtain to close on the play's final scene. She shouted her review of the performance from her seat at the center of the empty auditorium.

"Soulless!" she shouted. "Amateurish!"

Sitting next to her, Grover nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Well, it wasn't wonderful," he conceded.

_Wonderful?_ She thought. _With the sets falling down? The doors sticking? The cork getting stuck in the wine bottle? Wonderful? With the leading lady, Charlotte Davison, projecting all the regal bearing of Princess Grace and all the warm vulnerability of Hilary Clinton? Wonderful? With Luke -?_

"Want to talk to them?" asked Grover.

"No," Annabeth decided.

It was a radical decision, she knew. But with only four hours to go before they opened in front of an auditorium filled with paying customers, there was nothing she could say to her actors that she hadn't already said to them a hundred times before. Whatever last-minute reminders she had for them, she could save for her pep talk, just before the curtain. Right now, they'd probably profit most if she gave them a chance to stew in their own juices for a while.

As Annabeth rose from her seat, Grover said, "What should I tell them?"

"Repent!" said Annabeth. Squeezing past him, she made her way to the aisle.

"That's all?" asked Grover.

"No," said Annabeth. She had to do something about Luke.

"Luke?" he guessed.

"Yes," said Annabeth.

"Shoot him?" asked Grover.

"Tell him to meet me in the cafeteria," she said.

"Ah!" said Grover approvingly. "_Poison _him."

"Rehearse him," said Annabeth. "That's where I'll be, if you need me." She turned and hurried up the aisle. Reaching the door, she paused and turned back to Grover.

"But Grover," she called.

He was halfway down the aisle by now, heading backstage. He stopped and turned to her.

"Don't need me," Annabeth pleaded. Then she turned and headed out the door. As she moved down the empty hallway, heading for the cafeteria, she told herself, _It's got to get better, because it can't get any worse._

Annabeth had been wrong about Luke. Dead wrong. He was as smart as she'd hoped. Smarter. He'd learned all his lines, letter-perfect, overnight.

And he could be funny. In exactly the chip-on-the-shoulder way Mike Connor was supposed to be funny.

And cute? Yes, he was cute. But what good did it do him? None!

Because, as cute and funny and as smart as he was, when it came to women – and especially when it came to Charlotte Davison – Luke was totally helpless.

Of course, right from the start, Annabeth expected Luke might have a little trouble dominating Charlotte. After all, so far as Annabeth knew in real life nobody ever had.

She also expected Luke to be a little awkward and embarrassed kissing Charlotte. Strange as it may seem, making an on-stage kiss seem natural is one of the hardest things for an actor to do. But with practice – of which there'd been plenty, these last four days and nights – Annabeth had felt sure these minor problems would go away.

Except they hadn't. The first time Luke was introduced to Charlotte he'd been completely overwhelmed by her and, up to this moment, he still hadn't recovered.

And the kiss!

God! You could see Luke working up the courage for the kiss from the moment he walked on stage, early in the first act, until the moment he actually go to it, deep in the second act. It was like he'd never kissed a girl before.

Which, when Annabeth thought about it, might even be the case. When she thought about it – much too late in the game – it occurred to Annabeth that she'd never heard of Luke going out with anybody. Not that he didn't date, or spend some time hanging out with one girl or another. It was just that, so far as Annabeth could discover, it was never any one girl. Or, if he did see a lot of any one girl, she was likely to be one of those girls that boys hung out with, but hardly ever go out with. Annabeth knew the type. All to well. She _was _the type.

Now it was time to turn Luke around. It was her one last chance to bring out all the overbearing masculinity she knew Luke had in him. Her final crack at turning Luke into a reasonable facsimile of Tracy Lord's savior and everyone's favorite chauvinist pig, Mike Connor.

Entering the cafeteria, Annabeth set to work, moving chairs and tables around, positioning them so they'd approximate the furniture on the set for Mike and Tracy's big love scene. The love scene was the key to the whole play. If she could make that work, the play would work.

But how? The truth was, she had no idea what she'd do with Luke, once he arrived. Over the last four days, she'd try everything short of –

"Hey," said Luke. He was standing in the doorway, watching Annabeth arranging the furniture. "Setting up for a funeral?"

_Jesus!_ Thought Annabeth. _He looks like his dog just died!_

"Charlotte hasn't been giving you much help," she told him. It was, she told herself, at least half the truth.

"Man, she is beautiful," said Luke, shaking his head. "But I don't seem to be making much of an impression on her, do I?"

"Because she is _Charlotte!"_ said Annabeth, "If you'd think of her as _Tracy –"_

"But she's _not_ Tracy!" Luke insisted. For a moment, he looked like he might burst into tears. Quickly, averting his gaze, he dropped his eyes to the floor.

_Poor guy!_ Thought Annabeth. Taking a deep breath, she walked over to him and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Hey," she said, very softly, very calmly. After a moment, Luke looked up at her.

"You know," Annabeth told him, very softly very calmly, "they're just girls, Charlotte and Tracy. And you're just boys, Mike and you. And sometimes…" She pressed the palm of her hand to Luke's chest and looked deep into his eyes. "Sometimes" she continued, her voice sounding a little husky in her ears, "boys and girls. It doesn't matter who they are. Or where they are. Or what's going on around them. They just want each other so much. They –"

Luke kissed her. As she's been hoping he would. _For the sake of the show,_ Annabeth told herself. Only. It feels so good, kissing him! With his mouth – so hungry – pressed against her mouth! With his arms – so long and strong – wrapped around her! With his body – his breath coming deep and slow – pressed against hers!

"Mmm…." She murmured – when, at last, the kiss had ended. For a moment, she just looked at him. And then she raised her face to be kissed again. And this time – it seemed to last forever and yet, it ended all too soon.

"Mm…" Annabeth nestled her cheek against his chest. She couldn't believe what she was feeling! She wouldn't believe it! She'd gotten carried away, playing the part of Tracy. That was all. It had to be!

For a moment, basking in the warmth of Luke's embrace, Annabeth said nothing. But then, after a moment, she whispered his name – not _Luke's _name, but _his _name. She called him Mike. And then, just as she hoped, Luke whispered _her_ name. He called her Tracy. And then they were playing the scene, speaking the lines and feeling the feelings – as is she was Tracy Lord and he was Mike Connor.

All of a sudden, in the wake of Mike's kiss, Tracy seemed to have the shakes. So did Mike. Tracy wondered what it was that had shaken her so. Mike thought it might be love. Tracy said it _couldn't _be. And yet….

Mike started to kiss her again. And Tracy seemed willing. But suddenly, as is she'd heard a startling sound, she broke away from him. Someone was coming. Mike cursed.

"Good!" said Annabeth, calling an end to the scene they were playing. "You're a good kisser," she Luke – like she was a teacher, grading his paper.

"Yeah," said Luke, smiling shyly. "Well, I'm glad _you_ think so, anyway."

_He was still thinking about Charlotte!_

"I'm not Charlotte," Annabeth admitted.

"No," said Luke.

_The swine!_ "But I'm not exactly chopped liver, either," she reminded him.

"No," he said, smiling. "Not _exactly."_

Annabeth laughed. "Want to try it again?" she dared him.

"Sure," Luke said.

She smiled. "Too bad! I've got to run over the lighting cues."

Luke laughed.

Quickly, Annabeth turned and headed for the door.

"Thanks!" he called to her.

Pausing in the doorway, like Lauren Bacall in _To Have and Have Not_, Annabeth smiled and lifted an eyebrow and said, "The pleasure was all mine."

Luke laughed again, as she turned and went out the door.

_Wow!_ She told herself as she hurried down the hallway. _What some people won't do, just to get a good performance out of an actor.  
_

__

_

* * *

_

The drumbeat of the rain, the sting of the raindrops pelting against her upraised face – this, Annabeth had to remind herself, was neither.

This was the shower in the girls' locker room, downstairs from the auditorium where - in about half an hour - the curtain would be going up on _The Westport High School Drama Club's Production of Philip Barry's _The Philadelphia Story, _a Comedy in Three Acts_.

In just a few minutes, the ushers would be opening the doors to the auditorium and showing the audience – including Stephanie Walsh, the drama critic of _The Westport Chronicle_, and her own parents and the parents of her friends, and her enemies – to their seats.

But Annabeth did not want to think about any of them or any of that, now. She'd just extricated herself from the last of a series of last-minute crises that had kept her hopping from the moment she walked out of the cafeteria,, wondering what in the world she was doing, kissing Luke Castellan, in the middle of the afternoon, before the evening of -!

Annabeth shook her head. She didn't want to think about _that_ right now, either! She didn't want to think about anything.

This is the proverbial calm before the proverbial storm and she wanted to enjoy every last second of it, for as long as she could.

_And how long is that?_ She wondered.

Opening her eyes, she squinted through the pelting rain of the shower and checked out the time on her trusty – water-resistant to 100 meters – Timex watch. It was pushing seven-thirty. Storm time was fast approaching. Calm time was over.

Quickly turning off the shower, she grabbed a towel from a pile near the door and hurried out into the locker room. Stepping over her discarded shirt and jeans, which lay crumpled on the floor where she'd dropped them only a few minutes ago, she hurried over to the locker where she'd stowed the opening-night outfit that she'd brought with her from home this morning.

Hurrying, Annabeth toweled herself dry, slipped into her panty hose, and stepped into the clingy black silk dress she bought just the weekend before. Annabeth supposed it was odd of her not to own the "little black dress" before now. The only other dress in her wardrobe is a sundress she'd had to get, back in June, so she wouldn't look too out of place at a distant cousin's lawn party wedding.

But the way that Annabeth saw it, putting on a dress and makeup and jewelry was what girls did to attract the attention of boys. And she wasn't much interested in attracting the attention of boys who were attracted by dresses and makeup and jewelry.

Annabeth dressed for herself. She wore jeans, mostly with sneakers or boots. And a lot of different tops – all of them pretty, and each of them, for one reason or another, interesting in its own. She normally wore her blonde hair with its princess curls in a ponytail. No makeup and only subtle perfumes.

But that was it. That was Annabeth. Take her or leave her.

Because, if her experiences so far had taught her anything, it was that most boys weren't worth the all-out effort most girls put into attracting them. Particularly if they happened to be athletes. They were the worst. Although it has taken her forever to realize it. During her first three years of high school, she'd gone through a "jock phase". It had been part of her search for a tough guy with the soul of a poet. But none of the athletes she went out with had anything like the soul of a poet. Instead, what they had, every single one of them, was this born-to-win attitude that turned their relationships into contests, the girls they went out with into opponents and their opponents' body parts into trophies.

After awhile, Annabeth had enough of jocks and their games. By the time she finished her junior year, she'd bench herself. For good.

Annabeth sighed and stepped into her black high heels. She fastened the diamond pendant with the antique gold chain – which was a gift from her father on her sixteenth birthday – around her neck. The final touches were the pearl earrings that her stepmother had loaned her for good luck.

Then, after a fast glance in the mirror, she took off, clattering her heels over the locker room's tiled floor, hitting the brakes and skidding out the door.

A few moments later, she was backstage, telling the cast their work was over and now was the time to relax and enjoy themselves. All they had to do, Annabeth told them, was trust the play to carry them through, and, she added, "Remember everything I taught you."

With that, she turned and gave Luke a big wink and said, "Especially you." And then, while everybody laughed and Luke blushed, she told them they were going to be wonderful and headed for the wings.

And a few moments after that, as the houselights dimmed for the start of _The Philadelphia Story_, she was standing at the back of the auditorium, next to Grover and Mr. Brunner, praying that her cast would not make a liar out of her.

* * *

**A/N: As always, thank you for reading my story. As the drama unfolds, remember that Percy and Annabeth need to go through their respective relationships before they find each other. And trust me, it is worth the wait. And to give you a little preview of what's to come, Thalia will make an appearance. The next chapter (Percy) will be up by the weekend. Please feel free to review and ask any questions you may have. I promise to get to all the reviews and emails in the next few days.**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading - MFP**


	9. Chapter 8  Percy

**Chapter 8 – Percy**

The spectators come to their feet cheering as Percy and the rest of the Goode High School boys swim team enter the pool area from the locker room. Swim meets do not pull huge numbers like football or basketball – mostly just family and close friends of the swimmers. No cheerleaders, either. No colored commentary or flashy half time shows. This purity is one of the reasons why Percy loves swimming. Or more like, used to love swimming. But now is not the time to think about _that._

Most of his teammates steal glances at the stands, trying to catch sight of their friends or their girls – or whoever – in the crowd. But not Percy. The crowd's roar is his signal to begin pretending there is no crowd. At the moment the cheering begins, he begins shrinking the size of his world, until there is no world outside the lanes of the pool.

Usually, anyway.

But today, as the crowd cheers, Percy finds himself sifting through the voices, listening for Callie's voice among them. It's foolish, he knows. But just trying gives him an excuse to imagine Callie up on her feet and shouting his name. Just like she used to do for Jack last year.

For an instant, as he imagines her, Percy is Bono, taking stage at Madison Square Garden. He is King Arthur, spurring his stallion out onto the field of battle. He is…..laughing at himself and his fevered imagination.

And then, in the next instant, the very idea of Callie – the picture of her in his mind's eye – disappears without a trace. Nor does the idea of a big-time college swim coach – sitting in the stands, watching him, judging him – rise to take its place. In Percy's mind there is no longer room for such extraneous thoughts.

There is only the meet and swimming in it.

After Percy's brilliant swim in the 400 freestyle relay last week, Coach Levine has put him on the relay team, permanently. That means that Percy has to stay loose and focused for three races – the 200 medley relay that starts the meet, the 100 meter butterfly in the middle of the meet and the 400 relay at the end.

And it is the 100 meter butterfly that everyone keeps talking about. This is the event that will make Percy Jackson a legend in the swimming community. Scott Webber broke the record previously held by Dean Clark on October 15, 1987. The time – 47.87. And no one has come close since – until Percy that is.

At Percy's first meet his freshman year, he swam a 51.16. Now that may seem a long way away from Webber's time, but considering no one has been under 56.24 in ten years, this was – as some would say – epic. And ever since that meet, Coach Levine has been riding Percy like a seahorse on a merry-go-round. He makes Percy swim the most sets, makes him stay in the gym the longest, just makes him do "more". Percy swims 356 days a year – no breaks for holidays. That dedication is what makes a champion, a record breaker, a legend.

The 200 medley goes smoothly. Patrick and Devon leave the disappointments from the meet prior behind them and both pull off impressive swims. When all is said and done, the team finishes in a respectable second place.

As Percy stands on the blocks for the 100 meter butterfly, he looks down at the turtle tattoo on his left foot, gives a silent _"love you, Mom"_ and awaits for the start signal. From the moment he hits the water, Percy knows he was having one of "those races." The type of race where you are so in-tuned with your body, where your form is perfect and your breathing is effortless. When Percy touches the wall, the crowd was going crazy. His time was 49.05! Now it's not a question of _if_ he will break the record, but now it is _when_ he breaks the record.

Unfortunately, Percy cannot enjoy the moment because now he needs to concentrate on the 400 relay. Brushing off pats on the back and congratulations from his teammates, Percy grabs his warm-ups and iPod and heads to his secret hiding spot in order to visualize his third and final event. But as he slips the earbuds on, he cannot help but think about Callie in the stands and wondering if she is thinking of him.

Goode is running away with the meet so a lot of the pressure is off Percy and the rest of the swimmers for the relay. But, when you have a big-time swimming coach in the stands, Percy knows he still needs to deliver the goods.

And deliver he does.

Percy finishes a full body length ahead of the second place team. _Hope you like what you saw Mr. Sullivan_ thinks Percy, as he climbs out of the pool with a smirk on his face.

And Jason Sullivan loves what he saw!

"Fine meet," he tells Percy. He shakes his hand and smiles and looks Percy in the eye. They are standing in the locker room – Sullivan, Percy and Coach Levine. Coach Levine just finished making the introductions. A tall, wiry guy with crew-cut blond hair, a weathered face and flinty eyes, he looks more like somebody you'd call "Doc."

On the spot, Percy finds himself liking this man and wanting to be liked by him. With Coach Levine looking on – beaming like an exhibitor at a dog show – Percy shakes Sullivan's hand, meets his gaze and tells him, "Thanks. I appreciate it."

"Do you suppose you and me and your dad could sit down somewhere, and talk a little about your plans for the future?"

"Sure," Percy tells him. "My father suggested, if you wanted to talk, he would meet you at Big Nick's Burgers on Broadway and Seventy-seven and I could join you as soon as I've showered and dressed."

Sullivan smiles. "He's a planner, your father," he says.

With a nod and a smile, Percy agrees. "You've got that right," he says.

"Good swimmers don't just happen," says Sullivan.

"You can say that again," says Coach Levine.

Acknowledging the coach's contribution with a nod, Sullivan tells Percy, "Big Nick's will be fine. Broadway and…?"

"Seventy-seven," Percy reminds him.

"You can't miss it," says Coach Levine.

And he doesn't.

When Percy walks into Big Nick's about forty-five minutes later, he discovers Sullivan sharing a booth with his father in a relatively quiet back corner of the restaurant. Standing unobserved on the restaurant's threshold, Percy takes a moment to study his father.

This is Don Chambers' big moment, the moment he's been dreaming about ever since he brought his son to the beach and taught him how to jump into a pool. Now it the moment when Don gets his chance to set his son on the high road to success and maybe fortune and just possibly fame.

Although it may have been a fantasy when it started, for years now – probably since his career as a swimmer peaked in high school – Don Chambers has practically lived for this moment.

And now that the moment was finally here, Percy can't remember the last time he saw his father looking so happy or so much at ease.

Standing there, looking across the room at his father, Percy is grateful that he's had the good fortune to give him this moment, this piece of his dream.

But at the same time, he's also terribly aware that the rest of his father's dream could easily stretch out and snare him from the next moment to the end of his life. In fact, Percy is wondering if he shouldn't just turn around and melt back into the crowd and disappear, when his father spots him.

Returning his father's smile, Percy waves and crosses the restaurant and joins his father and Jason Sullivan in their booth.

"I've been telling your father you looked pretty good in the water today," says Sullivan. He says it like a compliment, but Percy understands it's really an honest assessment of his performance.

Meeting Sullivan's gaze and returning his smile, Percy says, "We were pretty lucky."

"The good ones make their own luck," says his father.

"Seems like," says Sullivan, nodding his agreement. And then, to Percy, he says, "So why the butterfly?"

Percy just opened his mouth to answer, when his father jumps in says, "Well, we always thought it was the hardest stroke to master so why not be the best at what's the hardest. Isn't that right, son?"

And 'son' was about to answer, when his father adds, "and it was the stroke I swam in high school so naturally he wants to follow in his old man's footstep or swim stroke. Ha ha."

Sullivan gives a hearty laugh in return while Percy was seething inside. To be honest, Percy's favorite stroke was the backstroke. Yes, some people may find it lame but Percy always felt like the backstroke was the hardest. First, you start in the water and you need to have exceptional leg strength to have a strong kick off the wall. Then there is not seeing the wall you are charging towards. The backstroke is all about timing – timing your strokes, timing your flip turn just perfectly. You cannot have fear or doubt while doing the backstroke. But try telling that to Don Chambers.

"I don't want to keep you long. I imagine you've got plans," says Sullivan.

"Yes," says Percy.

"What's her name?" asks his father. "Callie?"

Immediately, Percy is sorry he told his father anything about his plans for tonight. "Dad," he says.

"Daughter of Charles T. Buchanan," his father tells Sullivan. "You've heard of Buchanan Investments?"

"I think so," says Sullivan, sounding more polite than persuasive. "Well. So as not to keep a lady waiting…"

And with that, he begins telling Percy and his father about the University of Florida, about the opportunities it offers its student athletes – the educational opportunities, the social opportunities, the career opportunities. It isn't a sales talk. He tells it straight, and living up to his word, he keeps it short and sweet.

Sullivan does not offer Percy a scholarship, right on the spot. Instead, he suggests that Percy and his father might want to give some thought of flying down to Gainesville, sometime after Christmas. As the guests of the University of Florida, they could take a look around and meet some other people connected with the university's swim program and see for themselves if Florida isn't the kind of school they're looking for. The university would pick up all the expenses, of course, and there would be no obligation. That's understood.

"Think about it," says Sullivan, as he gets up to leave. Shaking Percy's hand, he says, "Stay healthy."

"Nice to meet you, Don," he tells his father. "I'll stay in touch."

"Nice meeting you, Jason," says Percy's father. "And please do."

"Thanks," says Percy.

Sullivan nods and, dropping a ten-dollar bill on the table to cover the cost of his drink, he's gone.

As soon as he clears the restaurant, Don Chambers looks across the table at his son, and – scowling and pointing at him, like an old Uncle Sam poster – he says, "Florida Wants You!"

And he laughs.

And he reaches across the table and takes Percy's hand and squeezes it.

And he looks Percy in the eye.

And Percy can see tears of joy welling in his eyes, as he says, "Florida is just the first. There's a lot more to come. We're on our way!"

For a split second, Percy has a nearly irresistible urge to laugh and look his father straight in the eye and say, "What do you mean 'we,' big fella?"

But there's no way he could bring himself to spoil his father's big moment.

So he smiles.

And he nods.

And he says, "Yeah."

* * *

**A/N: A semi-short Percy chapter, but I felt it was important to see a little bit more about how Percy feels about his "chosen" path in life and his relationship with his father. **

**Also, I want to give a shout-out to Somebody615 - they are the only one to comment on Percy playing the online video game with Connor and Travis. Yes, Connor and Travis are friends with Luke in Westport, but they are also friends with Beckendorf. How and why? That's not important. I put them in there as a way to demonstate that even though Percy and Annabeth have not met (yet!) there is a connection there. And there will be more connections as the story unfolds. Will you be able to spot them?**

**Thank you for reading and for the reviews. Next chapther, Annabeth, will be very soon.**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading, MFP**


	10. Chapter 9  Annabeth

**Chapter 9 - Annabeth**

Raising her glass, beautiful Tracy Lord smiled at handsome Mike Connor.

Handsome Mike Connor smiled at beautiful Tracy Lord and raised his glass.

Standing at the back of the jam-packed auditorium, Annabeth braced herself. Grover had his hands over his face and was peaking between his fingers. Even Mr. Brunner was at the edge of his wheelchair.

This was it, for all the marbles. Tracy Lord's older brother, Sandy, had just departed from the Lord family's patio and left Tracy alone in the moonlight with Mike Connor. Tracy and Mike, a.k.a. Charlotte and Luke, were easing into their love scene.

If Mike Connor didn't sweep Tracy Lord off her feet, if his kiss didn't knock her socks off, then – no matter how admirably the rest of the play was directed and performed – the show, as a whole, just wouldn't make it.

On the other hand, if somehow Mike Connor _did_ sweep Tracy Lord off her feet, then the play – as old as it was – could and just might take off and fly.

That's why, ever since the cafeteria, when she'd done her damnedest to get a rise out of Luke, Annabeth had done everything she could think of to keep him pumped up for this scene. Like singling him out when she gave the cast her final pep talk just before the curtain.

Then, after that, when the first act was over and she rushed backstage to tell everybody they were doing fine and keep it up, she paid a visit to Luke's dressing room. Annabeth knocked on his door and popped her head inside and caught him, standing in the middle of the floor, halfway through changing costumes and bare to the waist.

Annabeth didn't say a word, at first. She just looked him up and down. And then, she smiled a slow smile and said, "Foxy!"

And then she popped her head back out the door. Annabeth thought she saw a little leer in the smile on Luke's face, in the split second before she closed the door behind her.

Annabeth hoped so.

Because, if ever in his life there was a time for Luke to feel like a real stud and a certified hottie, now was the time.

Annabeth crossed her fingers and held her breath. Grover was starting to sway a little and Annabeth could have sworn she heard him make a "bleating" sound. Mr. Brunner was slowly twirling the end of his long beard.

With Luke and Charlotte exchanging small talk and banter, the love scene started out fine.

Then, as their small talk and banter escalated into verbal sparring, things started to get a little more serious.

Now, Mike and Tracy were teasing and toying with each other – acting aggressive, but being flirtatious.

And still the acting held up.

Then, suddenly, Tracy was challenging Mike – almost daring him to kiss her.

And he did!

Luke took Charlotte into his arms. No. He _swept her up_ into his arms! And kissed her! But really _kissed her!_

"Um, did Luke just…" started Mr. Brunner.

"…slip her…" continued Grover.

"…the tongue. Yeah." finished Annabeth.

From the way Charlotte reacting – snapping as taut as a bowstring in Luke's rough embrace – it was easy to see that Luke _did_ surprise her with his tongue.

As the kiss ended, Charlotte stood there, bug-eyed and dumbstruck, just staring at Luke. Like she was _supposed_ to. But like she never had _before._ Like she had been _blown away!_

Luke could not wait for her to raise her face to be kissed again. He _couldn't_ wait! Cupping her face in his hands, he leaned down to her, lifted her mouth to his and kissed her again.

And this time, between Luke's flaming desire and Charlotte's smoldering anger, there was _real passion _in the kiss.

Maybe it wasn't exactly the kind of passion Philip Barry had in mind when he wrote the scene over seventy years ago, but from where Annabeth was standing, it was the next big thing and a real godsend.

_Luke's done it!_ she thought.

But what about Charlotte? As stunned as she'd been and as furious as she was, would she remember to act? For a moment, while Charlotte held her tongue, Annabeth held her breath. But then Charlotte's autopilot must have kicked in, because – in a voice that dripped with real astonishment – she whispered Mike Connor's name. Like she was _supposed_ to. But like she never had _before._ Like she was _blown away!_

"Well, that seems to be an effective strategy," says Mr. Brunner.

Grover just stood there gobsmacked and quietly bleating.

"Bloody fantastic!" said Annabeth.

Transfixed, Annabeth stood there watching as the scene picked up from there and practically soared to its conclusion.

And when, at the end of the scene, Tracy and Mike ran off to the pool for their moonlight dip, Annabeth joined in with the audience and sent them on their way, riding on a wave of enthusiastic applause.

_How I wish I was Tracy, running off for my moment with Mike! Wait, does that mean I wish I was Charlotte, too? Did I wish Luke kissed me? That way? With all that passion? Twice?_ thought Annabeth.

_Of course not!_ she told herself. _Don't be stupid!_

"'_The play's the thing,'"_ she reminded herself. And she pushed the thought aside.

And meanwhile, up on the stage, just as Philip Barry intended, the energy of the love scene picked up the play and propelled it straight through the ensuing complications of the plot, through the remainder of the second act and on through the third act to the play's surefire conclusion.

And when at last the curtain closed on Tracy Lord's happy ending, the audience rose to its feet, applauding and whistling and cheering.

"Bravo!" shouted Annabeth, feeling not the slightest bit embarrassed about adding her voice to the chorus of congratulations.

As the cast took bow after bow, she made her way down the aisle, clapping her hands and shouting along with the crowd, "Bravo!" to the boys and "Brava!" to the girls.

And then, before she knew it, _she_ was up on the stage, enjoying _her own_ happy ending, basking in the warmth of the stage lights and floating, free of care, on the sweet sound of success.

* * *

They went sailing through the night, Grover behind the wheel of his ancient yellow Volkswagen Beetle convertible, and Annabeth, hair blowing in the breeze, beside him.

They had stayed behind to close up the auditorium, and now they were on their way to the cast party at a new restaurant that opened near their town, La Cucina Bianca.

Luckily, it was a clear night, because Grover's car – which he converted to run on vegetable oil and Annabeth christened "Go-Go Dancer" – was, as the name implied, topless.

It was not too far from school to Bianca's and after about fifteen bone-chilling minutes, they arrived.

After Grover found a sheltered spot to park, he gave Annabeth his arm and escorted her across the parking lot and into the restaurant.

At the rear of the restaurant, beyond the main dining room and bar, the private party room was jam-packed with members of the cast and crew, their dates and guests, and the usual complement of school officials.

Everybody was busy eating, drinking, dancing and just plain blowing off steam. But when Annabeth and Grover appeared at the door, it seemed as if everybody noticed them at the same time. As if on cue, everybody in the room dropped what they were doing, turned to the door and greeted them with cheers and whistles, bravos and applause.

Overwhelmed at first, after a moment, Annabeth and Grover joined in, first applauding each other and then applauding everyone who was applauding them. Then, as the applause peaked and faded, they stepped inside the room and joined the party.

And what a party it was!

There was food! Annabeth was famished. She helped herself to generous portions of Bianca's famous gnocchi and eggplant parmigiana.

There was drink! A glass of red wine smuggled to her from a cute young waiter who hadn't yet learned the language or the state liquor laws.

There was dancing! Which Annabeth loved – even though, feeling as wiped out as she did in the wake of her debut as the Drama Club's director, she couldn't help but slip off her high heels and dance to a couple of Justin Bieber songs with Katie, Lily and Grover.

With "like, baby, baby, baby, oh" stuck in her head, Annabeth took a sit next to Mr. Brunner and downed a big glass of ice water.

"I told you that you could do it, my dear Annabeth," said Mr. Brunner.

"Well, it was a little touch and go there for a moment," admitted Annabeth.

"Yes, yes, quite true. But you found a solution on your own. I must admit that a great number of people were shocked with your selection of Luke Castellan to replace Ryan, but you saw something in him that not many people see. Although his method was unconventional, it seemed to be just what the play needed."

Annabeth just blushed at that.

"I am very proud of you, Annabeth," he said. "It was a wonderful show. And I can guarantee that the folks from NYU will agree when I send them my letter of recommendation."

Annabeth blushed a little deeper. "Thank you, Mr. Brunner. That means the world to me."

"You have earned it, my dear. You earned it," he said. "Now, where is our young hero? Have you seen Luke at all?"

Annabeth had seen him backstage, after the show. She'd given him a hug and congratulated him on giving a real first-rate performance. And she'd thanked him for doing what he had to do to in order to get a reaction out of Charlotte.

Luke smiled his lopsided smile at her and taken her praise in stride. Then he excused himself and hurried off to change, so he could get to the cast party, where – Annabeth hadn't the slightest doubt – he expected to pick up with Charlotte, exactly where he'd left off with her on stage.

If he hadn't been in such a hurry, Annabeth might have told him that Charlotte was furious with him. That she considered the liberty he'd taken with her thoroughly unprofessional and totally disgusting. That there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell she'd come around to forgiving and forgetting in time for the cast party, so he might as well forget it. However, the way it was at the time, there would not have been any point. As fired up as he was, Luke would not have heard a word Annabeth said.

Mr. Brunner snapped Annabeth out of this flashback when he said, "ah there he is now."

Annabeth looked up to see Luke wander over to their table.

"If you will excuse me," said Mr. Brunner. "I need to make the rounds and talk with some of the parents."

Annabeth, said "goodbye" to Mr. Brunner, was ready to say "hello" to Luke when he beat her to it.

Except he didn't say hello.

He said, "She isn't coming!"

"Who?" asked Annabeth – although she knew damned well who Luke was talking about.

"Charlotte!" said Luke.

Annabeth shrugged and said, "Her loss." And then she turned her attention back to her glass of water.

"She hates me!" said Luke. He was getting loud.

Annabeth looked at him. "Have you been drinking?" she asked him. He had. She could tell. His face was flushed and his eyes were glassy.

He raised his voice another notch. "You know what pisses me off?" he asked her. "I wouldn't have done any of this, if it wasn't for her!"

People were starting to look now.

Ignoring them and keeping her voice conversational and low, Annabeth said, "You wouldn't have done it for you?"

Luke pointed his finger at her and waved it in her face. His voice rising to a shout, he said, "You took advantage of me!"

Her patience wearing thin, Annabeth said, "Did I?"

"You knew I'd want to – " He didn't want to admit it.

But Annabeth didn't want to let him deny it. "You'd wanted to what?"

"She's so beautiful!" Wallowing in self-pity, Luke hung his head and shook it.

Annabeth knew she should let it go at that, but her temper go the best of her. "Is that all it takes?" she asked.

Luke glared at her. "I'm not talking to you to you!" he shouted. "You used me!" He spun around and took off for the door.

Annabeth called after him, "We used each other!"

Luke did not look back. He just kept walking, straight across the dance floor and out the door.

Everybody's eyes were on Annabeth.

Taking a deep breath, she turned back to her table. Lifting her glass, she muttered, "Bastard!"

Slipping into the chair beside her, Grover said, "What was that all about?"

"Where would you like for me to begin?" asked Annabeth.

"Any place you'd like," he said.

"On the way home," Annabeth answered.

"Pardon?"

"Would you mind?" she asked. "I've about had it."

They rose from the table and Annabeth took Grover's arm. As they moved through the crowd, working their way to the door, Grover said, "As difficult as it is to remember sometimes, Westport High School is _not_ the world."

As they walked out the door and into the bar and saw Luke – standing at the bar, waving at the bartender, trying to get his attention – Annabeth said, "Amen to that."

* * *

**A/N: Ahh, another chapter completed. So what does this mean for Annabeth and Luke? They will return in chapter 11 and more sparks will be flying. The next chapter will be Percy and I hope to have it up by the end of the weekend but by Tuesday the latest.**

**I love all the reviews and feedback! I am working on making sure the verb tense is the same and checking those run-on sentences. This is my first story so all advice and critique (good and bad) is very much appreciated. **

**I apologize for not responding to the reviews sooner and I promise to get to them this weekend. This week was a little too crazy for my taste (but it makes for great story-telling...hmm, new story idea forming!)**

**And a special shout-out to Avatard1234 for noticing in chapter 8 that I had Percy swimming _356 days _and it should have been _365 days._ Thanks friend for spotting that.**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading - MFP**


	11. Chapter 10  Percy

**Chapter 10 – Percy**

Percy catches her peeking at him through the curtain. She smiles, lets the curtain fall back into place and then opens the door to him.

He says, "Hi, Callie."

Callie probably says, "Hi, Percy."

Except he is not paying attention to what she says. He's too blown away by how she looks.

Callie is wearing a light grey, short-sleeve wrap dress. The dress drapes over and clings to every well-defined inch of her body, from its low neckline to the hem that hits just above the knee. It's a simple dress, but on Callie, it looks anything but simple. To put it mildly, she looks incredible!

On her feet are high-heel black boots. On her ears are beautiful earrings of brown and yellow that peek out from under her caramel hair and pick up the color of her bright almond eyes.

And her smile, Callie's smile, is so warm and wide, Percy could just reach out and -

"Maid's night off," Callie says, breaking into Percy's thoughts.

He laughs at her joke. However, the moment he sets foot insider her door and finds himself standing in her perfectly appointed, turn-of-the-century foyer, he realizes she probably is not joking. She shows him down the hallway, past the richly furnished living room and into an oak-and-leather recreation room that she calls the den.

Callie tells him she's sorry her parents are not here for him to meet, but, she explains, they've driven to Vermont for the weekend.

Instantly, Percy finds himself wondering if he and Callie have the house to themselves. And he wonders, if they do have the house to themselves, how long do they have it for? But then he laughs at himself for what he's thinking and for the fact of how readily he's forgotten that Callie is "taken," that she's Jack Hamilton's girl.

"What's so funny?" Callie asks him.

"I've forgotten," says Percy.

Callie looks at him like he's a little strange, which he probably is. She's dropped into an oversize leather chair and stretched those long legs out on the oversize leather ottoman that stands in front of it.

Percy sits on the leather couch, opposite her.

Remembering, her manners, Callie says, "Can I get you anything?"

"No, thanks," says Percy. "It's pretty late, if we're going to see an eight o'clock movie." Percy takes out his Droid phone and is searching to see what movies are playing.

"Aren't you going to tell me?" Callie asks.

"What?" he asks her.

"Florida," she reminds him.

"Oh," he says. "Are you really interested?"

She looks at him like he's crazy. "Of course I'm interested."

Which kind of surprises him and kind of pleases him and definitely persuades him to put his phone away and tell her about Jason Sullivan. He makes it short and sweet for her – as Sullivan made it for him – and when he's done, she says, "That's fantastic!"

"Yeah," says Percy. "It's nice that they want me. Now how about helping me pick a movie?"

"Don't you think it's fantastic?" Callie asks him.

Resigning himself to looking to the bright side, but not wanting to make too much of it, Percy looks up from his phone and says, "Well, it does mean, if I want to go to college, I won't have to go to one here in the city and live at home with my mom for the next four years."

Percy loves his mom, adores her even, but her life is changing now, too and Percy, well, he just thinks it would be better if he gave her some space.

"So, yeah," he says. "That's pretty fantastic, I guess. To know that. Sure." Then, thinking he's answered her question, Percy takes another shot at his phone.

"_Pretty_ fantastic?" she says. "Don't you realize what being an athlete at a school like Florida can mean for your future?"

Percy cannot believe how seriously and personally she's taking all this. "I think I can," he tells her.

That does not seem to satisfy Callie. Getting up from her chair, she crosses the room and perches on the edge of the coach next to Percy. And then, as is she was confiding a major secret to him, she says, "According to Jack, if you're a college athlete and a good student and attractive and well-spoken, you start out on an inside track that runs straight from the campus to the boardrooms of the biggest corporations in America."

"Oh?" says Percy. "But it's not like football or basketball. Hell, it even isn't hockey. It's just swimming. Granted, it is better than track and field."

"It doesn't matter. You look at the people who sit on the boards of directors and you'll see that a lot of them are former college athletes. Plus, look how popular swimming is now after Michael Phelps."

He cannot believe how serious Callie has become. In fact, it's so sudden and so surprising, he can't help by laugh. "Jesus!" he says. "You and Jack should be running Florida's recruitment program. You two could sure teach Jason Sullivan a thing or two!"

"I don't get it," Callie confesses. "Isn't that what you want? To be successful?"

Percy smiles, shrugs and says, "Could be. I don't know."

"Well," she says, "what do you think?"

"Me?" says Percy. "I think I want to see a movie."

Callie tugs at his sleeve. "With your life?" she asks.

"I don't know," he says.

"Well," she says, "what do you like to do?"

"Finally!" he says. "A question I can answer." So Percy tells her. In no special order. Just as it comes to him.

"Taking pictures. Thinking up stories about the people in them. Listening to music. Especially in a car, driving somewhere, late at night. Walks in the woods and in out-of-the-way places that I don't usually get to in the city. Food. Good people. The ocean. Playing video games. Skinny dipping. Sleeping late…."

"Movies!" says Callie.

"Love 'em," he tells her.

"What time is it?" she asks.

Percy looks at his trusty Timex watch that is water resistant to 100 meters, and sees that the time is 7:54.

"We blew it," he tells her.

Callie laughs and says, "Perfect!"

"Why?" he asks her.

"Because" she tells him, "going to a movie is no way to celebrate."

"Celebrate what?"

"Florida!"

"My alma mater. So where should we go?"

Callie's got an idea – an idea that delights her and sets her eyes blazing and brings her to her feet.

"I know!" she says. "You wait here, okay?" She turns and heads for the door.

"Wait!" he calls after her. "Where are you going?"

Reaching the door, she pauses and turns back to him. "Upstairs. To make reservations and change."

"Change?"

"It will only take a second," she tells him. "You'll need a jacket and a tie. You can borrow one of daddy's."

"This place we're going…?"

"It's my party," she assures him. But her assurance has the opposite effect.

"What kind of place…?"

"Trust me," she tells him. "You'll love it."

"I will?"

"You have to," she insists with a smile. "It happens to be one of those out-of-the-way places that you usually don't get to in the city."

"Oh!" he says like he finally knows what she's talking about. Although he doesn't. But at least she's been listening.

Callie nods, as if everything is all cleared up and then she turns and walks off.

For a moment, Percy watches after her and wonders what he's gotten himself into.

Callie calls to him from down the hall. "If you want a drink," she says, "help yourself. I don't know if they'll serve us where we're going."

"Thanks!" he calls back to her. He turns to the well-stocked bar in the corner of the room. Ordinarily, he's not a drinking man, but this is turning out to be quite an occasion.

Percy asks himself what a debonair gentleman of high distinction might say at a time like this. "Don't mind if I do," he drawls.

* * *

Floating at the top of Fifth Avenue, just a step down from the stars and countless stories above the twinkling lights of the city below, the Penthouse Lounge at 230 Fifth is like a joke. It's like one of those swanky clubs you see in the movies from the 1940's – the kind of place where Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers used to spend their evenings, sipping champagne and tap-dancing their brains out.

Except, of course, Fred and Ginger are not here tonight, because this happens to be seventy years later. Only nobody seems to have noticed. Not the maitre d' who greets Callie and Percy at the door. Not the hostess who shows them to their table. Not any of the waiters who've been fluttering around them since they first sat down.

None of the people sitting at the other tables seem to have noticed, either. All decked out in their formal best, most of them look like they got themselves laminated sometime back in the forties.

Out on the dance floor, the story is not any different. It's nineteen forty-something out there too, as Tommy Whexler and His Orchestra take one musical stroll down memory lane after another. The dancers flow through fox-trots and jitterbugs without batting an eye or missing a beat.

In fact, the illusion of yesteryear conjured up by this dazzling, art deco of a room is so persuasive that Percy feels from the moment he walks in like he's actually passing through a time warp and entering into Another Dimension of Reality.

"Act natural," is what Callie says him when she leads him out the elevator and he see where she has taken him. As they approach the maitre d', when Callie sees that Percy is about to burst out laughing and blow the whole deal, she clutches his arm and whispers, "Pretend you are one of them."

Wiping the silly grin off his face, Percy glances over at Callie, nods, and says, "Piece of cake." Unfortunately, passing for one of them is not as easy for him as it is for Callie. For one thing, Callie is not wearing running sneakers. And she does not have a silk tie knotted around her neck or wearing blue sports coat that was a little too tight in the shoulders.

More to the point, in her formfitting navy blue silk cocktail dress, with her hair swept up off her bare shoulders and her mother's diamond earrings dangling from her ears, Callie does not look much like your average, underage high school kid, either. Callie looks so fabulous; a man would have to be a blind man or a fool to make an issue of her age.

Fortunately, the maitre d' at the Penthouse Lounge is neither. He's so enthralled by Callie, he barely has the presence of mind to give Percy's outfit the contemptuous glance it so richly deserves, before he passes them along to his captain for seating.

From there on in, it has been a cinch.

Percy and Callie sit down at their table and study the menu. Deciding to skip the first four courses and go directly to dessert, they order champagne and chocolate covered strawberries.

At Callie's suggestion, the first thing Percy does when their order arrives is raise his glass in a toast to Jason Sullivan and the University of Florida. Once that is done, they sit back and sip champagne like Fred and Ginger and nibble strawberries and try – without much success – not to laugh or crack a joke at all the incredibly unbelievable fuddiness around them.

When Percy makes a joke about the frisky museum pieces and premature antiques that are out there cutting a rug, he is not prepared for Callie's response of "if you think you can do better, Mr. Jackson."

Which is kind of a joke, too. And kind of a dare, as well. And not a bad idea – at least as far as Percy can see at this time. Except, just a second ago – after Percy smiles at the joke, takes the dare, rises from the table and escorts Callie to the dance floor – a funny thing happens.

What happens when Percy and Callie reach the dance floor and Callie turns to face Percy – at the moment her eyes meet his and just before she comes into his arms and they begin to dance – isn't funny.

It is so like a dream come true that Percy can not quite believe it. "Do you believe it?" he asks Callie.

He feels her hair against his cheek, her head against his shoulder, her body moving against his.

Callie laughs and says, "It isn't the kind of place you usually get to, right?"

Which is not an answer to the question Percy is asking her. He is talking about dreams coming true, because he is feeling like maybe they could. In fact, he is feeling like maybe a dream is coming true, right here and right now.

Callie's misunderstanding his question brings Percy back to his senses. He reminds himself that he's been drinking. Then he reminds himself that Callie belongs to Jack Hamilton. Then he says, "No, it isn't like the kind of places I usually get to. It's beautiful."

Callie looks at him like he is crazy.

And maybe he is. Because, all of a sudden, with Callie in his arms, he realizes something – he is, quite literally, floating on air, sky-high above the clouds and dancing among the stars.

And Percy wonders if this is what it feels like to be in love.

* * *

**A/N:** **Okay, do not send the firing squad out to get me for this chapter. I can guarantee more sparks in the next chapters. The next Annabeth chapter is almost done and should be posted in the next few days.**

**As always, thank you for the amazing loyalty and for the extremely helpful feedback. Any and all thoughts and suggestions are appreciated.**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading! - MFP**


	12. Chapter 11  Annabeth

**Chapter 11 – Annabeth**

Annabeth heard the doorbell. It was about ten-thirty Wednesday night. It had been a long day and it still was not over.

Since right after dinner, she'd been up in her room, trying to get through all the Calculus homework that has been piling up in the weeks since she'd agree to direct _The Philadelphia Story _and stopped paying serious attention in class.

Annabeth spent about an hour on the phone with Katie trying to decipher all the jargon that filled up her notebook. But, after about fifteen minutes, they decided to talk about Katie's little not-so-secret crush on Travis Stoll instead. Nothing like some good, innocent girl talk to get your mind off your problems. However, when Katie asked her about the incident at the cast party with Luke, Annabeth decided that it was indeed time for her to get back to her studies.

Then, about a minute ago, as Annabeth looked over the sentence _the tangent line is a limit of secant lines just as the derivative is a limit of difference quotients_, her concentration really took a nosedive.

In a flash, Annabeth found herself thinking about the review what was scheduled to appear in tomorrow's edition of _The Westport Chronicle_. Even in this day and age of blogs, online news sources and 24/7 coverage of what Celebrity X is up to, some things in the small town of Westport, Connecticut have not changed. One tradition is the town paper that comes out weekly. Every Thursday. Since 1886. And is read by practically everybody in town. Of course, Annabeth has heard that some of the most famous directors swore they never read their reviews.

Unfortunately, Annabeth was not a famous director and she could not help hoping that Stephanie Walsh, the _Chronicle's_ drama critic, had been blown away by the show and by the work of its _extremely gifted young director, Ms. Annabeth Chase._

_Ms. Chase_, she imagined her review might read, _has transformed a handful of high schoolers into a company of highly accomplished actors and actresses, fit to take their places beside – or even in front of – the top young adults in Hollywood today. Indeed, when compared to the work of other male directors, Ms Chase's gift for comedy – _

That was as far as she had gotten, reading her fantasy rave review, when the doorbell rang and brought her back to everyday reality.

According to her trusty Timex, it was twenty after ten. Annabeth wondered who could be ringing the doorbell at this hour.

She wondered which of her parents would tear themselves away from _Criminal Minds_ and go to the door. Annabeth imagined it was her dad, since her stepmom, Helen, was such a diehard Shemar Moore fan.

A moment later, she heard footsteps on her stairway. "Annabeth?"

Wrong again. It was her stepmother.

As much as she hated tearing herself away from her Calculus homework, before Helen had climbed halfway up the stairs Annabeth was standing at her door.

"The reporter's here," said Helen.

"From the _Chronicle?_" asked Annabeth.

Her stepmother laughed. "From _The Philadelphia Story,_" she said.

_Jesus!_ thought Annabeth. _What's Luke doing here?_

After the stunt he had pulled at the cast party, just the thought of him made her angry. "I'm not here," she told Helen. And then, before her stepmother could respond, she stepped back into her room and closed the door behind her.

Annabeth had seen Luke at school several times since his outburst, but she had always avoided him. She had nothing to say to him. Not until he apologized. Not until he walked up to her and said that he was sorry for what he had said at the cast party and the way he had said it.

Helen knocked at her door. "Annabeth?" she said. She opened the door and stepped inside the room.

"I'm not here," Annabeth insisted.

"What's he done?" asked Helen.

Annabeth never told her about Luke and the scene he had made Saturday night at the La Cucina Bianca. Her parents were so proud of her success that Annabeth did not want to do anything to spoil it for them.

Annabeth answered, "What _hasn't _he?"

Taking her evasion in stride, her stepmother said, "Maybe he has come to apologize."

Annabeth shook her head and told her, "He's not the type."

Helen smiled as it that was a joke, and said, "Whatever he has done, don't you think you owe him a chance to -?"

"He's had a chance!" said Annabeth.

"He has something for you," her stepmother said. That was a surprise.

"What?"

As offhandedly as she could, with a shrug and a smile, Helen said, "It looks like a copy of tomorrow's paper."

_How could he!_ thought Annabeth. _It doesn't come out until late afternoon!_

"Fresh off the presses," said her stepmother. "But if you want me to tell him you're not –"

"That's okay," Annabeth told her.

As she took off for the door, she called out to Luke, "You've got the paper?"

Standing in the entryway at the bottom of the stairs, smiling up at Annabeth with his village idiot's grin, Luke said, "Yup." He looked so pleased with himself, Annabeth could have spit. But she was too refined.

Hiding her excitement behind a mask of cool indifference – because she did not want to give Luke the satisfaction and because, win or lose, the review in the_ Chronicle_ was only one woman's opinion, after all – Annabeth descended the stairs.

As she reached the landing, Luke took the newspaper from under his arm, handed it to her and said, "Peace?"

She wanted to rip the paper out of his hand and read the review. But she fought the temptation. Keeping her hands at her sides, she said, "Have you read it?"

Luke grinned and nodded. "Uh-huh," he said. "Congratulations."

"Why don't you offer your friend a chair?" said Helen. She'd followed Annabeth down the stairs and paused to play hostess on her way back to the living room.

"Oh, yeah," said Annabeth, acting as if she had forgotten to be polite when – in fact – she had intended to be brief. With barely disguised reluctance, she asked Luke, "Would you like to come down to the basement?"

"Sure," said Luke.

Annabeth showed him the way. In the finished basement, when they arrived at the bottom of the stairs, Luke held the paper put to Annabeth and said, "Here."

Sounding as cool as she could under the circumstances, Annabeth said, "Thank you," and took the paper. It was folded open to the review.

The headline above the review read:

FIRST RATE"PHILADELPHIA STORY" AT WESTPORT HIGH SCHOOL

Then, beneath Stephanie Walsh's byline, the review began.

"In a highly polished and thoroughly satisfying production, before a standing-room-only audience at the Westport High School auditorium last Saturday night, Philip Barry's classic _The Philadelphia Story_ proved itself a timeless gem, full of comic insights, as delightful and true today as they were when the play was first presented over more than half a century ago…

"Not bad!" said Annabeth.

"Yeah," Luke said. Annabeth read on.

"Playwright Barry has found a true champion in the talented young director Annabeth Chase, whose sense of style and pacing is unerring…"

"Wow!" said Annabeth.

"Wait until you see what he says about me!" said Luke.

"Nor could anyone hope to find a young actress as beautiful and accomplished as the star of the evening, Ms. Charlotte Davison.

"Hmmph," said Annabeth. As far as Annabeth was concerned, aside from her reaction to Luke's kiss, Charlotte's performance has seemed both uninspired and uninspiring.

"He wasn't crazy about Charlotte," said Luke with a reassuring smile.

"He wasn't?"

Luke shook his head.

"Indeed, if any fault could be found with the current production, it would have to be with Ms. Davison's highly accomplished impersonation of the emotionally distant Tracy Lord. If anything, Ms. Davison was a little too convincing in her icy detachment from her partners in comedy…"

"Damn!" said Annabeth.

" 'However,' " said Luke.

"However, with the assistance of Luke Castellan – a very gifted young man with the panache of a teenage George Clooney –"

"George Clooney?" said Annabeth.

"Panache?" said Luke.

"—director Chase was able to turn her leading lady's exaggerated coolness to the play's advantage. Under the sure hand of his director, Mr. Castellan's wonderfully romantic and strikingly real performance served as a challenge to the imperious Ms. Davison's dominance of the stage. In fact, at the moment of her astonished surrender to Mr. Castellan's undeniable charms, Ms. Davison was at her most convincing…"

Annabeth had to laugh at that. "Jesus!" she said, shaking her head.

"Not bad, huh?" said Luke. "I'm thinking about becoming an actor." Turning his profile to Annabeth, he lifted his chin and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "What do you think?" he asked her

"Looks aren't everything," Annabeth told him.

Luke laughed.

Annabeth went back to the review, reading it – with its high praise for everyone involved in the production from Mr. Brunner's help as the Drama Club's advisor to the Grover as the stage manager – straight through to the end.

"Those who were on hand for the performance were treated to a first-rate evening of theater – the best that has been seen in this area for many a season. Those who were unable to attend really missed something special."

"She liked it!" Annabeth shouted. She could not contain herself. She threw her arms around Luke.

It startled the hell out of him. "Yeah," he said. "We did all right."

Suddenly, remembering who it was she was hugging; Annabeth disentangled herself and backed away. "Can I show it to my parents?" she asked.

"Sure," said Luke, "But – "

"But what?"

"But thanks," said Luke.

"Thanks?"

Luke grinned. "You probably won't believe this," he said, "but I don't get asked to play handsome guys who sweep girls off their feet all that often."

Annabeth was at a loss of what to say.

"Not to mention," he said, "all the help you gave me…" He shook his head, "Getting me to believe that I was – or could be – that kind of guy."

Annabeth wished he had not brought that up.

Luke smiled and said, "I guess you can't always count on getting that kind of help. But—"

"Just doing my job," said Annabeth.

Luke nodded. "But you did it so well!" He laughed and shook his head.

Annabeth said nothing.

Luke went on. "What I said at the party," he told her, "about you using me – I didn't mean it."

_The hell you didn't_, she told herself.

Luke continued, "I was just –"

_Oh, no you don't!_ she thought.

He shrugged and made a little helpless gesture with his hands. "Crazy, I guess."

"Not in this court," she told him.

"Hey!" Luke said. "After that stunt in the cafeteria, you had me half believing I was as irresistible as Mike Connor! Do you know what that feels like?"

Annabeth just looked at him.

"It can make you crazy," he told her, "thinking maybe there's hope for you after all."

_Don't make me start feeling sorry for you,_ she thought.

"Thinking 'Lousy with Girls' is just a phase you've been going through for the last seventeen years."

_Not before I've heard you apologize,_ she told herself.

"Anyway," he said, "by the time I got to the love scene, I'd pretty much snapped into it, you know? And for one crucial second there, I actually thought I could sweep Charlotte – not Tracy, _Charlotte_ – just blow her away with a kiss. Can you believe it?"

Annabeth nodded. "Yes," she said. What she couldn't believe was how little Luke thought of himself! And how much he thought of Charlotte!

"The whole thing with Charlotte," he said. "I've never been that close to someone who was so…"

"Empty?" Annabeth suggested. It just jumped out of her. _From where?_ she wondered.

Luke looked amazed. Maybe even offended.

"I didn't mean that," Annabeth told him.

"No," said Luke. "Maybe she is. Although you couldn't prove it by me. I never got deeper than how beautiful she was."

"Neither did she," said Annabeth.

Luke just looked at her.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm not catty. Ever. I swear."

"That's okay," said Luke. "You are probably right. I've thought about it. The truth is, I know Tracy a lot better than I know Charlotte. I don't know Charlotte at all. What kind of guy falls in love with a girl he doesn't know at all?" he asked her. Then he looked away.

Because, she imagined, he could not stand for her to see how much it hurt and what a fool he felt like. And watching him, she shook her head and thought, _But he's so funny! And so smart! _

And if she'd never thought he was cute before, at this moment – just standing there in front of her, looking off into space – he was beyond cute. He was – in his humility and his incredible vulnerability – sexy as hell.

"Appearances aside," Luke said, "I'm not Mike Connor." Turning back to look at her, he smiled and said, "As a matter of fact, as of right this minute, the girls that I've actually swept off their feet can be counted on the fingers of one foot."

"Not that it's any of my business," Annabeth began. _Don't do this! _She warned herself. "But it seems to me," she continued, "if you're out to impress girls – or other people – instead of convincing yourself that you're somebody that you're not – like Mike Connor, for example – you'd be better off just getting good at being whoever you actually happen to be. You know what I mean? I mean, Mike Connor isn't even real for crying out loud!" _What are you getting so mad about?_ she wondered.

Annabeth shrugged and tried to let it go. "Well," she said, "that's what I think, anyway. Not that anybody asked me. I think you have to just go on being yourself, until you run across somebody who's knocked out by who you are."

"Not that it's gotten me anywhere so far," she admitted. "But someday, it will. Or else."

"Or else what?" Luke asked her.

Annabeth shrugged. "Or else it won't," she told him.

Luke smiled at her. It was a real friendly smile – like you would give a friend you were really fond of and hoped the best for. A really nice smile.

"Anywho," said Annabeth, "if you want me to say I forgive you…"

"I do," said Luke.

_Has he apologized?_ she wondered. But it was too late to wonder. "I forgive you."

"Thanks," said Luke.

"Do you forgive me?" asked Annabeth.

Luke did not understand.

"For helping you believe that you were Mike Connor," she explained.

"Oh," said Luke. "Sure. For as long as it lasted, I loved being Mike Connor!"

_No!_ she thought. _You still don't get it!_ But rather than belabor the point, she said "Because you are talented. In case you haven't figured that out yet, either."

He hadn't. She could see that. Apparently, up until this every minute, Luke had never admitted to himself how much he actually craved the crowd's attention.

"And maybe," she said, "because you are so talented, being an actor isn't such a ridiculous idea."

Luke looked at her for a second and then broke out laughing.

"I'm serious," she told him.

He saw that she was.

And she saw that she had him thinking about it.

"Christ," he said, "an actor! Wouldn't that be weird?"

"Well," she said, "I've got a lot of homework…"

He didn't hear her at first. He was off somewhere in his head. Probably signing autographs. But then, after a second, it registered.

"Oh," he said. "Sure." He started for the stairs, but caught himself and turned back to Annabeth. "You can keep the paper. I have a bunch of them."

"Thanks," said Annabeth.

"No problem," said Luke.

And their meeting was over. They'd never even sat down. They had just stood there in the basement, at the bottom of the stairs, the whole time.

Now, Annabeth led Luke back up the stairs to the front entryway. As she opened the front door for him, against her better judgment, Annabeth tried – one last time – to make Luke see her point. "I think," she said, "if you'd just try being yourself for awhile, you might find somebody who'd appreciate you for who you are."

Luke stepped out onto the porch. "Who I am," he said, "is the kind of guy girls come to for laughs or a shoulder to cry on. Or to help them out with their homework. I never met a girl who actually wanted to…"

He shrugged and looked away.

"Maybe you have," said Annabeth. "And you just didn't know it."

"What do you mean?" asked Luke.

Without saying another word, without thinking another thought, Annabeth reached her arms up around Luke's neck, brought his mouth down to hers and kissed him.

And there it was again! The feeling she had felt when she kissed him before in the cafeteria at school. When she was pretending to be Tracy Lord and he was pretending to be Mike Connor. Only this time, there was no pretending.

_This melting…_

_This floating…_

_This spinning…_

_So amazing…_

_So exquisite…_

_So perfectly right was…_

_Real!_

_Everything else was…_

_Nothing!_

_There was nothing else but…_

"Luke…" Her eyes still closed, Annabeth rested her cheek against Luke's chest and nestled, breathless, in his arms.

"Annabeth?"

She loved the sound of his voice, speaking her name. "Mm?" she asked.

"What was that?"

_Jesus!_ she thought. _What was that?_

As if awakening from a dream, she opened her eyes and looked up to see Luke's funny-sad eyes looking down at her; his sensuous mouth curled in a lopsided grin. Disentangling herself from his embrace, she said, "How the hell should I know?"

Luke laughed. "Good night, Annabeth," he said.

Smiling to hide the wave of embarrassment she felt sweeping over her, Annabeth said, "Good night, Luke."

As Luke turned and walked down the steps and over to his car, she watched after him and sighed with relief.

She waited while he started up the car and backed out of the driveway.

She waved to him as he drove off and disappeared from sight.

And then, when he was gone, she let herself back into the house.

"Dad! Helen!" she called. "They loved it!"

As she closed the door behind her, she thought, _And so did I!_

_

* * *

_

**A/N: So not only does Annabeth forgive Luke, she kisses him! I told you sparks were going to fly. The next chapter is in progress and I hope to have it up by the weekend. Thank you for the reviews and feedback. I will answer them in the next day or two. **

**Enjoy and Happy Reading! - MFP**


	13. Chapter 12  Percy

**Chapter 12 – Percy**

Percy is awakened to the sound of church bells tolling and thought, for a moment, he must be in heaven. He tried to rise for the bed on which he lay, but the sharp pain he felt in his side brought him back to earth. It reminded him of the grievous wound he suffered, fighting at the side of the Rightful King and the Only True Heir to the Throne of Ancient Greece.

The pain must have caused him to cry out because the next thing he remembered was hearing a voice say, "He lives!"

A second voice – so like an angel, he thought he must be in heaven after all – answered and said, "His fever has broken. Run and tell the King."

"Yes, My Lady."

He heard footsteps departing and then, a moment later, standing over him, he saw her – an angel, here on earth, and he wondered how such an angel could look at a sinner such as he like that.

She smiled down at him. "My Lord," she said. "We have won the day. Our King is restored to the throne."

"My…" He tried to speak, to tell her of his joy, but his pain was such that he could not.

"Hush," she told him. "You mustn't speak. You must save your strength. You have had a close brush with death. Until your strength is recovered, you must lie still and keep silent and stay warm. It is the King's command."

But even as she spoke, a sudden gust of wind blew in at the window – flickering the candles and chilling him to the marrow of his bones. She saw the shivers rake over him and she registered alarm.

Hurrying to the window, she secured it with heavy draperies. Then, walking about the room, she blew out the candles, one by one. When the last candle was extinguished, she came to the side of his bed.

There, in the light of the moon, she let her robe slip from her shoulders and fall about her feet. Lifting his cover, she slipped into the bed beside him.

Percy felt her beside him, as warm as a summer's day, and said, "Callie…"

And with that, Percy scrapes his chair back from his desk and heads for the kitchen. _Callie! If I am ever going to get this homework done, I need to stop thinking about Callie!_

It's Wednesday night, around nine-thirty. His mother is at her writing workshop and then has plans for a late dinner with her fiancé, Paul Blofis.

He opens the door to the refrigerator and begins searching through it, looking for something to nibble on. As he does, he thinks, maybe, he should move his books and papers out into the living room. That way, he tells himself, at least he can spread out and make himself comfortable, while he sits over his homework and daydreams about Callie.

"Ah!" bellows Percy. "I need to stop this!" But he cannot believe how much he wants her! More than anybody or anything he's ever wanted before! And he definitely can't believe that he's practically given his word not to feel the way he feels about her! Or – if he's foolish enough to feel what he feels – not to do anything or even say anything about it. He knows that just hanging out with Callie – as much as he wants her and as committed as he is to holding up his end of the bargain – is driving him crazy.

There's nothing to eat. In the refrigerator. Nothing interesting, anyway. Closing the refrigerator, Percy tells himself he has to put an end to this, here and now. Even if it breaks his heart.

Percy takes out his cell phone and dials Callie's number. As he hears the phone ringing at the other end of the line, he steels himself for what's to come. He tells himself he is making the right decisions, he's doing the right thing.

For himself and for Callie. And for Jack Hamilton. Good old Jack.

Percy hears the click of the call connecting and then he hears her voice – so like the voice of an angel that, for a moment, he thinks he must be in heaven after all – saying, "Hello?"

Telling himself, _This is it!,_ Percy takes a deep breath and says, "Pizza?"

"No," she says, "Callie."

"Mimi's Pizza and Family Restaurant," says the sign over the door of the storefront pizza joint on the east side of Lexington Avenue, between Eighty-fourth Street and Eighty-fifth.

Arriving a moment after Callie, Percy looks across the street and sees her, framed in Mimi's front window, like a dancer in a spotlight, encircled by the night.

As he stands watching, the guy working the counter approaches Callie and asks if he can help her. Callie smiles and shakes her head and tells him, no, he can't help her, she's waiting for someone. Then she turns and glances toward the door – as if the someone she's waiting for might walk in at any second.

Callie looks up and studies the oversize menus, mounted on the walls above the counter. And while there is nothing unusual in any of these things she does, there is something about Callie – about the particular way she looks, as she whiles away the seconds, waiting for Percy to arrive – that transforms her simple solitude into something mysterious, something enchanting, something timeless.

Now she is looking at the clock, mounted on the wall. She is thinking, _He's late_, and she is getting pissed.

_She's pissed! _Percy tells himself. _I'm late!_ Pulling himself together, Percy dashes across the avenue, slows to a casual stroll as he hits the sidewalk, and then saunters in through Mimi's front door.

"Sorry," he says. "Have you been waiting long?"

"No," says Callie. "I just got here."

They order pizza. Individual slices. Callie orders hers with pineapple and ham. Percy orders his with black olives. She says she hates black olives. He says he won't force her to eat his slice.

"For here or to go?" asks the guy working the counter.

It's a lovely October evening. Warm for this time of year. There's maybe a hint of spring in the air. They order their slices to go.

Percy says it's his turn to pay. Callie laughs and lets him.

Like carefree vacationers strolling though the exhibits at a theme park, they walk down the avenue, eating pizza and checking out the shop windows. It's so great just hanging with Callie that Percy cannot imagine why he'd ever think of giving it up. After all, what could be bad about spending a spring-like autumn night strolling down Lexington Avenue with a beautiful girl, munching on hot pizza and talking about nothing in particular – just school and swimming and the stuff in the shop windows and the people that you pass on the street?

"Is that Natalie?" There's a short brunette in a light blue Northface fleece jacket trudging down the street toward them, and from where Percy stands, she looks a lot like Callie's friend Natalie Montogomery.

"Who?" says Callie.

"Nata-"

"God! It is!" Panicking, Callie clutches Percy's arm and burrows into his side.

Quickly, Percy puts his arms around her and hustles her into the doorway of a closed shoe repair shot. Steering her to the deepest corner of the doorway, he leans her back against the farthermost shop window, stretches his arms out on either side of her, leans close to her, and shields her from view.

They stand like that – Percy and Callie, face-to-face, looking into each other's eyes – not more than a few inches apart.

Neither of them says a word, at first.

Then, Percy whispers, "Why are we hiding?"

In a whisper that tickles his face, Callie starts to explain. "Because…" But she can't. Not really. Her eyes on Percy's, she shakes her head and says, "I don't know."

His eyes on Callie's, Percy says, "We don't have anything to hide, do we?"

Callie shakes her head. "Not yet," she says. Then – as if she cannot believe what she's said – she smiles and blushes and bites her lip.

Then – although he cannot believe what she's said – Percy holds his breath and leans ever so slowly forward, until his mouth has found Callie's mouth and Callie's mouth has opened to him. At that exact moment, as he closes his eyes and loses himself in Callie's kiss, Percy Jackson knows, without a doubt, that he is, for the first time in his life, quite simply, quite totally, quite madly in love.

When, finally, their kiss is over – neither of them says a word, but they look at each other for a long time and then turn to go – Natalie is standing there, staring at them.

Except she isn't Natalie. In fact, except for the light blue Northface fleece jacket, she looks nothing like Natalie.

Percy looks at Callie and she looks at him and they both crack up. As they waltz by this girl on their way out of the doorway, Callie tells her, "Good night," and Percy says, "Thanks."

The girls just looks at them, as they laugh and link their arms around each other's waist and hurry off down the street and turn a corner and disappear from sight.

They kiss again at Callie's front door. He does not wait for an invitation this time, either. He just takes her in his arms and kisses her. And it's just like the first time. When it's over, Callie buries her head in Percy's chest. Percy holds her in his arms. And neither of them speaks for a second. And for a second East End Avenue seems as silent as a church.

Then, in a whisper, Callie says, "I have to go."

Percy releases her from his embrace, but – holding on to her hand – he looks into her eyes and says, "Will you go out with me Saturday night?"

Callie looks at him and shakes her head. "I don't know," she says.

"I love you," he tells her.

She lowers her eyes. "I'm going out with Jack Hamilton," she says.

"Do you love me?" he asks her.

Callie shakes her head. "I don't know," she says. "I have to think." She raises her eyes to his. There are tears in her eyes, as she says, "Please. Let me. I'll call you, okay?"

Percy nods. "I want you," he tells her. And he pulls her to him to kiss her once more. But she holds back and shakes her head and says, "Don't." Callie bursts into tears, turns and disappears into her house.

Percy stands there for a moment, not knowing where he stands. Then, shaking his head, he laughs. He hops up on the banister that guards Callie's front stairs. He slides down the banister to the sidewalk, nearly busting his butt in the process. Reaching the sidewalk, he fights for balance, turns, and heads for home.

* * *

**A/N: My deepest apologies for the delay in this chapter. Some times, life just has other plans. **

**I could not do this without you, the reader. Thank you for the amazing feedback and reviews. Many of you say that you finally like the Annabeth/Luke and Percy/Calypso pairing for the first time in FanFiction. Wow! That is just so awesome to read. I am glad that I am doing the characters justice. Just dont' hate me when some of the relationships go a little sour.**

**To answer some questions:**

**1. Yes, Callie is supposed to be Calypso**

**2. Yes, Thalia will make an appearance (*cough, cough! next chapter! cough cough!*)**

**I hope to have the next chapter up by the end of the weekend. You all take care and I will be in touch soon.**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading! - MFP**


	14. Chapter 13  Annabeth

**Chapter 13 – Annabeth**

Annabeth and Luke were kissing good night, when Luke asked Annabeth if she would like to drive to New York City on Saturday and spend the day.

It was Thursday night. They had spent the evening down in Annabeth's finished basement, studying together, as they had practically every school night ever since last week, when Luke came calling with his apology and the _Chronicle's_ rave review.

Now, with her parents already upstairs in their bedroom, Annabeth was at the front door, in Luke's arms.

Up until now, she had said yes almost every time Luke asked her to go anywhere, whether it was going to see a movie, like they had done last Saturday, or taking a ride over to Giuseppe's Pizza for a slice and a Coke. Then there was just riding around in Luke's car or riding to one of the places that Luke knew, where there was sure to be no one around.

Even though driving to one of Luke's secret places usually meant just parking, talking, listening to music and fooling around – and even though their fooling around, once it got started, had a way of shifting from sweet to intense with dizzying speed and mind-boggling ease – whenever Luke has asked Annabeth to go anywhere, she would almost always say yes.

This was different.

Up until now, whenever Luke had asked Annabeth to go anywhere, wherever it was they went, they had always gone alone. That was not what Luke had planned for Saturday.

"I thought making it a double-date might be okay," he told Annabeth. "If it's okay with you."

It would have been fine with Annabeth, if the couple that Luke was thinking about double-dating with was not Thalia Grace and Logan McAllister

Annabeth was a little concerned that Thalia and Logan might want to spend the day living up to their reputations. Annabeth did not know either Thalia or Logan personally. Even though Thalia lived in their town, she went to Our Lady of the Lake School for Girls. With Westport being as small as it was and as gossipy as it could be, she knew who she was and had heard a lot about her.

Thalia was this really pretty girl with short, spiky black hair and these electric blue eyes that danced with humor and danger. She was also supposed to be really smart and really nice. But, Thalia spent so much time partying and earning herself the reputation as the hottest girl in town, hardly anybody thought of her as anything else.

Except for Luke, of course, who thought of her as a kind of oddball – like he was – and, therefore, a kind of kindred spirit and friend.

Logan was Thalia's current conquest. A part time singer in the rock band, Zero to Nowhere and a full time lady's man, he was almost as handsome as he was vain and, according to the gossip, almost as successful with girls as he claimed to be.

What bothered Annabeth about double-dating with Thalia and Logan was how the two of them might somehow set the pace for Luke and her. Annabeth was not a prude or anything like that, but that did not mean she wanted to get pressured into trying to keep up with the hottest couple in town, either.

Still, Annabeth did not want Luke thinking she was afraid to go to New York City with him. So when he said, "How's that sound to you?" she just smiled and said, "This Saturday? Sure. That would be great."

And it was.

At least at first.

All the way into New York, Thalia kept talking about all the problems she was having with Shannon. Shannon – it turned out – was Thalia's mother, but the way Thalia talked about her, it sounded more like she was the wayward daughter.

The problem was, when Thalia's father left her last year, for this flight attendant he had met on a flight from San Francisco, Shannon had not gone to pieces like any reasonable woman would have.

She had gone to pieces like an _un_reasonable woman. Instead of crying for a little bit, maybe having a shouting match or two, Shannon had turned into a flaming libertine.

She took up smoking, and not just tobacco.

She took up drinking, and not just in the evenings.

And she took up with all sorts of men. Just last week, Thalia had come down to breakfast and found her mother serving Bloody Marys to the man who had come to fix the cable the day before.

Thalia did not know what she was going to do about Shannon. She was thinking of shipping her off to a good military school, but she was afraid it might break her spirit.

Between laughing along with everybody at Thalia's "Shannon Stories" and singing along with the radio, Annabeth really enjoyed the short drive into the city. She began thinking she had been silly to be nervous about making the trip.

The plan was, once they got to New York, they were just going to hang out, check out some clothes stores and other funky shops in Greenwich Village, maybe wander around Soho, grab something to eat, maybe see a movie – whatever.

That was the plan.

At least, that was the way Luke told it to Annabeth.

Except, after they arrived in New York, parked the car and wandered around the Village for awhile, Thalia came up with another plan. She wanted to "check into a hotel, order up a bottle of Scotch and party until someone shoots a rocket out of their butt."

Annabeth thought Thalia was just kidding around. Until she dragged everybody into a pawn shop on Canal Street and bought a couple of battered old suitcases. Back on the sidewalk, Thalia told them, the way she had it figured, if they carried suitcases into the hotel, the desk clerk would think they were regular tourists instead of "just four high school kids out for a friendly little party on an autumn afternoon."

As she turned and looked up the street and marched over to the curb, she said, "All we need now is a cab."

"To where?" asked Logan. Lifting the two suitcases, he followed after her.

Annabeth looked at Luke. Luke smiled and shrugged.

"The Plaza!" said Thalia.

_She's actually going to go through with it!_ thought Annabeth.

Luke looked at her. "You don't want to…?" he asked.

Although Luke shook his head in anticipation of her answer, it seemed to Annabeth he was hoping she would say, "Sure! I'd love to check into a hotel and spend the whole day making passionate love to you! No problem!"

And maybe he was. But that was not what she said. What she said was, "Get serious!"

Luke laughed. "Just checking," he said.

By then, Thalia had flagged down a cab. "Come on!" she called, as Logan opened the door for her.

Luke said, "No. Thanks, anyway. We'll just hang out."

Thalia looked at Annabeth. Annabeth felt like she was about twelve. But Thalia did not put her down, like she might have. Instead, she smiled like she understood and like, maybe, she was a little envious.

It was that moment Annabeth decided that Thalia was really nice and – whatever anybody said – she really liked her.

"Pick us up at seven," said Thalia. "Okay? On the fountain side."

"See you," said Annabeth.

"Good luck," said Luke.

Thalia and Logan went off to do their thing, and Annabeth and Luke hung out, like they had planned.

They bought subs at an Italian deli in the West Village and then ate them, sitting on a pier, looking out over the Hudson River.

Then they caught a movie. _Up in the Air_ was playing at Theatre 80 on St. Marks Place. It was a great movie that Annabeth had seen a few weeks ago with Grover and she liked it a lot. She felt like Luke ought to see it because he had been walking around the last week thinking he had the "panache of a young George Clooney." She wanted Luke to see George Clooney, albeit a little older, at his panache-est.

If Luke was really serious about being an actor, like he had been saying he was, Annabeth thought he ought to see how far he had to go before he could honestly be compared to a great film actor (and writer, director and producer) like George Clooney.

Except the lesson was lost on Luke because about five minutes into the movie he started kissing Annabeth and they had not come up for air until the movie was over. As they came out of the theater onto St. Marks Place, Annabeth asked Luke what he thought of George Clooney's performance.

Luke shrugged. "It wasn't bad," he said. "But it was nothing compared to yours."

Annabeth felt herself blush. "We'll have to see it again sometime," she told Luke.

Luke broke into his lopsided, devilish grin. "Any time!" he said.

Annabeth gave him a shot in the shoulder, but Luke just laughed and said, "Okay. Okay. If you can't take a compliment…"

By the time Luke retrieved his car from the garage, it was after six-thirty. Beating their way through heavy traffic, they drove uptown to Fifty-eighth Street and the Plaza hotel and arrived just in time to pick up the happy couple.

Judging by the smiles on their faces and the way they kind of weaved as they walked to the car, Annabeth guessed Thalia and Logan had done everything they had set out to do. All the way back to Westport, they slept in each other's arms.

When they arrived back in Westport – after they had dropped Thalia and Logan at Thalia's house – Luke and Annabeth took a ride up to a spot Luke knew on an old logging road in the hills behind the school.

They talked awhile, like they usually did. They talked about Thalia and Logan and about how much fun they had in New York. But they both knew they were not talking about anything.

They were just passing the a little time before the kissing started. The kissing was about something. It was about how much they liked each other and how much they wanted each other. It was about love and making love. It was wonderful and urgent.

"Let's go in back," suggested Luke. The backseat of Luke's Accord was about more than kissing.

"Okay."

The backseat was about touching, about hands and breasts and –

"Don't," said Annabeth. "Please."

"Annabeth…." His hand was at her waist. His fingers were unfastening her belt.

"I really like you, Luke."

"Good."

"But still, don't."

"Why"

"Because…"

"Because why?"

"Because it shouldn't be like this," she told him. "It shouldn't be cramped and rushed and fumbled. It should be sweet and tender and beautiful. Don't you want it to be beautiful?"

"I just want it to be," he said.

Annabeth laughed and kissed him. "It will," she said. "Maybe. But not now. Okay? Not here and not like this."

Luke heaved a humongous sigh. "Okay," he said. "You want to go?"

She looked into his eyes and ran her fingers through his sandy hair.

"No," she said. "But it might be better if we did."

"Okay," he said.

She smiled, as he lifted himself off her and settled into the seat beside her. It was sweet, how much he wanted her. That he was willing to wait, was sweeter still.

* * *

**A/N: So our lovely Thalia makes her appearance. Don't you fret, she will pop up again from time to time. I looked through TLH and tried to find Thalia's mom's name but could not find it. I apologize if it is in the book and that I just missed it. If you know the name, please let me know.**

**The next Percy chapter is in the works and should be up in the next few days.**

**Thank you to my loyal readers and thank you to those of you who have added my story to your Alerts. Your dedication to this story is amazing!**

**Enoy and Happy Reading! - MFP**


	15. Chapter 14  Percy

**Chapter 14 – Percy**

"Would you do my back?"

Percy had walked in on Callie while she was in the shower. She did not seem to mind. Callie smiled and held the soap out to him. Her breasts were –

"Tweet!" As Coach Levine blows his whistle, all the other swimmers on the blocks dive into the water. Percy, startled out of his daydream, ended up performing an elegant belly flop instead. _Jesus! Not again!_

"Jackson!"

As Percy broke through the surface of the water, the coach bellows from the side of the pool. This was the fourth time today Percy has stumbled off the blocks. Coach Levine was about to deliver a litter of kittens.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?" he screams.

Percy screams back at him, "Falling into the water?"

Patrick laughs. A couple other guys snicker.

"Devon!" the coach screams.

"Yes, sir!" Devon has been trying to get himself back on the 400 freestyle relay team ever since his disastrous swim a few weeks ago.

"Get on the blocks!" Coach Levine commands him.

"Jackson!" he shouts. "Sit down!"

"Yes, sir," says Percy. He does not give a damn about practicing today. Or the meet tomorrow. Or doing anything else ever, for that matter.

He has blown it with Callie. Ripping off his goggles, he sets out for the bench by the side of the pool.

It's Thursday afternoon and since last Wednesday – when he asked Callie to go out with him Saturday night and she said she would let him know – he has not heard a word from her since. By now, he no longer expects to.

He moved too fast. He pushed her too hard. It's over.

Reaching the bench, he finds a spot for himself, next to Neil and well down from Coach Levine.

"She must be something, huh?" says Neil.

"What are you talking about?" Percy asks him.

Neil smiles, like he sees right through him.

"Your girlfriend," he says.

Percy does not smile. "I have no idea what you are talking about."

Neil laughs. "Come on, man," he says. "I have one, too."

Percy turns on him. Losing control with every word, his voice rising to an angry shout, he says, "What's the matter with you, dumb ass? Don't you get it? _I_ don't!"

Neil just looks at him for a second and then he shrugs and turns his back on him and walks off. Right away, Percy feels like the dumb ass. But he's been feeling so rotten, in general, that going after Neil and telling him he is sorry seems as pointless as everything else.

Percy cannot blame Callie for choosing Jack Hamilton over him. The truth is, she would have to be crazy _not_ to choose a hundred-percent, certified, All-American winner like Jack over a guy like him, who she only just barely agreed to hang out with in the first place.

And Callie was not crazy.

Percy was. How could he have imagined them together? Because she let him kiss her? _Christ! _he thinks. _Who in this day and age believes in kisses? Fools, _he tells himself. _Fools like me._

"Laps!" bellows Coach Levine.

Percy climbs back into the pool and finishes the workout with his teammates with the thought _Fools like me_ running through his head.

"Jackson!"

Percy is standing by his locker, getting dressed, when Coach Levine bellows his name and calls him to his office.

"Yeah!" he calls back to him. He finishes zipping up and cinching his belt. And then, while his teammates steal glances at him and exchange glances with each other, Percy makes his way out of the locker area and down a hallway to the coach's office, acting like he doesn't notice or care.

"Close the door," Coach Levine tells him. His head bent over his desk as usual, he is pretending he is busy with paperwork as usual and making Percy wait, as usual.

Now, he looks up. "You've got something on your mind out there besides swimming?"

"_Is_ there something else besides swimming?" Percy asks him.

"No!" Coach Levine shouts and pounds his desk with his ham-size hand. "Not for my captain, there isn't. Are you my captain?"

Percy shrugs. "I guess that's up to you."

"No," says Coach Levine. "It's up to you! You walk in here tomorrow with your head full of butterflies and I'll sit your ass on the bench so hard you will be pulling splinters out of it until Fourth of July! What have you got to say to that?"

"I'll try to do better."

"You'd better."

"Is that it?"

"That's it."

As Percy walks out of the coach's office and heads back down the hallway to the locker area, he sees Neil walking up the hallway, heading out.

Percy doesn't say anything.

And neither does Neil.

They just act like they don't know each other as they pass each other by. But once Neil has passed, Percy turns to look after him.

"Hey," he says.

Neil stops and turns to him. "Yeah?" he says.

"I'm going through something," Percy tells him. "It's got nothing to do with you."

"I didn't think it did," says Neil. "Anything I can do?"

"Don't tease me about girls for awhile."

Neil nods and smiles. "We gonna kick ass tomorrow?"

Percy heaves a sigh. "Don't we always?" he says.

"Sure," says Neil. "We're famous for it. Take it easy, huh?" And then he turns and walks off.

Except for a few stragglers, mostly guys you stayed behind to get a little extra attention from the trainer, the locker room is almost empty now. Moving to his locker, Percy picks up his jacket and books.

Nobody says a word to him as he leaves the locker room.

Walking down the empty basement hallway, it occurs to Percy that there is no point in his bringing his books home with him tonight. With all he has on his mind, there is no way he is going to get himself to study. He decides to drop his books off in his locker, near his homeroom, up on the second floor.

Percy climbs the stairs to his floor, walks out of the stairwell, turns into the empty hallway, and takes a few steps in the direction of his locker, before he lifts his eyes and sees her – curled up on the floor, leaning back against his locker, reading a book.

"Hi," she says.

"Callie!" he says, smiling so hard he thinks he might crack his cheeks. "What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you," she says.

He walks over to her and looks down at her. "But how did you know I'd come up here?" he asks her. "I don't usually."

Callie smiles and shrugs and says, "It's fate."

"You think so?"

"I've missed you, Percy." Callie reaches her hand out to him.

Percy takes her hand and helps her to her feet. "You can't imagine," he tells her.

And the next thing he knows, she's in his arms and he's kissing her and she's…

You can't imagine.

* * *

**A/N: Things are definitely heating up for our couples. And to put it to rest - yes, Percy and Annabeth will meet! Remember the summary - they need to fall in love with the wrong person first.**

**Thank you for the wonderful reviews and feedback. And a special "you are so awesome" shout out to SaviorofOlympus for emailing me how to get around the issue with posting new chapters. You are my savior!**

**Next chapter is a long one so it may take me a few more days until it is ready to be posted. Thank you for all the support!**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading! - MFP**


	16. Chapter 15  Percy

**Chapter 15 – Percy**

Last night, they had agreed – instead of Percy picking up Callie at her house this morning – they would meet at eleven o'clock under the marquee at the Lowes Orpheum Theater.

Callie was afraid, if Percy kept picking her up at her house every time they went out, sooner or later her parents would start wondering what their daughter and her "new friend" were doing, spending so much time together. If they ever suspected that their daughter and her "new friend" were doing anything more than just hanging out together, they would definitely make a huge thing out of it, since they are so protective of Callie and so crazy about -

That was another thing they had agreed to. Not last night, but right from the start. They would not talk about Jack Hamilton. Callie said that Jack was her problem and talking to Percy about it wasn't likely to help much. In fact, she said, as torn as she was between what she felt for Jack on the one hand and what she was doing with Percy on the other, even thinking about it hurt quite a lot.

Percy told Callie he understood.

Which he did. And because he did – and because he did not mind Callie getting into the habit of forgetting about Jack Hamilton as often as she could – he agreed, whenever he and Callie were together, for as long as they were together, they would both pretend there was no such person as the aforementioned What's-his-name.

It was amazing how good they got at it.

And how fast.

But the fact was, they had demonstrated a real talent for denying the existence of Whatchamacallhim the very first time they had a chance – that Thursday, after swim practice, when Percy found Callie waiting for him by his locker. After they kissed, there in the empty hallway, they had drifted into an empty classroom and gone right on kissing just as their very own He Who Must Not Be Named never was.

It was the first time they had let themselves give in to what they felt for each other. And the way they felt for each other, they might have gone right on kissing forever if – after a while – Callie hadn't thought she heard someone coming. Once they stopped long enough to see that no one was coming, they had realized that someone might. And if somebody did, it would not make sense for them to get caught making out in an empty classroom after school.

They had agreed to take a break, thinking it would not last very long and never guessing that it would wind up lasting the whole weekend. That night, after Percy dropped Callie at her door and practically flew all the way home, Callie's parents decided they would fly up to Boston for the weekend and that they would take their daughter with them – no matter how much she insisted that she would rather stay home.

This meant that Callie missed her chance to see Percy pouring what he had left of his heart and soul into the swim meet against Welton – which Goode won – and she missed her chance to celebrate the victory with him after the meet. The way it worked out, Percy and Callie did not get around to celebrating Percy's victory until early Monday evening.

They made a date to meet, the first chance they had, early Monday morning – in the split second it took for them to pass each other between classes. Slowing too slightly for anyone to notice, they spoke in voices too low for anyone to hear. Without wasting the time it would take to say hello, Percy asked Callie is she could meet him somewhere after swim practice.

"Yes," said Callie. "Where?"

Percy gave her the name of a backwater diner at the edge of the neighborhood where they would not be likely to run into anybody from school.

It was six-thirty and already dark when Callie walked in the door at the Old Towne Café and found Percy sitting in a booth at the back, waiting for her.

They said hello and ordered coffee and then sat for a moment, just looking into each other's eyes.

Neither of them said a word.

One of them couldn't.

Being this close to Callie had triggered Percy's memory of their last encounter and reawakened the incredible desire he had felt for her when they were kissing. Propelled by this potent mixture of memory and desire, Percy's brain had rocketed into lunar orbit and left the rest of him sitting there, across from Callie, wide-eyed and speechless.

Fortunately, Callie's silence was entirely voluntary. Otherwise, sitting there the way they were, they were so like statues, they were in danger of drawing pigeons. But after a while, Callie asked Percy to tell her about the meet she had missed. She did not want a summary of who won what event. That was just information. She wanted more than that. She wanted Percy to re-create each event for her – as if he were an announcer, describing it on the radio – so that she could experience the meet, stroke-by-stroke, just the way she would have if she hadn't been practically forced to go to Boston.

Somehow or other, Callie's request brought Percy back down to earth and broke the spell that had rendered him speechless.

But what was he to say? He did not really feel like doing a stoke-by-stroke account of the meet. Not here, anyway. And not now.

Even if he left out most of what happened when he was not swimming, it could take forever. Besides that, it would be embarrassing, trotting out all the superlatives to describe his own superlative performance.

On the other hand, he asked himself, now that he had regained the power of speech, why not?

After all, what was his hurry? Where was he going? And why should he be embarrassed, if all he is doing is telling it like it was? In the end he decided if a stroke-by-stroke description of the meet is what Callie wanted, then that's what she would get.

It turned out to be a brilliant decision.

Recreating the event for Callie gave Percy the rare opportunity to see her close up, reacting to everything that happened, just the way she would have if she'd been sitting in the stands, watching the action unfolding in the pool before her. Callie excited – with the color rising in her cheeks and the fire in her almond eyes dazzling and flashing – was something to see. In fact, the sight of Callie excited was so exciting, there must have been a thousand different times during Percy's retelling of the meet that he wanted to just lean across the table and kiss her.

But he restrained himself.

Until he brought Callie home.

By then, when neither of them could restrain themselves a second longer, they settled into the shelter of the ivy that framed Callie's front door and kissed until, finally, when they couldn't stand it anymore, they gasped good night and staggered off in opposite directions.

But that was not the end of it.

Nowhere near.

All week long, taking advantage of even the slightest opportunity to sneak off and be alone together – even if it was only around a corner and just for a second – they had gone at it, hot and heavy, every chance they had.

Still, as passionate as they became – as urgently as their bodies pressed together, as desperately as their hands roamed and groped – they never went much further than making out for all they were worth.

Until last night.

They had not seen each other after yesterday's meet – which Percy and his team won, bringing their season's record to 6 – 0 and maintaining their position, tied with Eastham, at the top of the conference.

Early in the week, Percy's father had agreed to meet with another scout, who had called to say he was coming up from the University of Miami to see Percy swim. Chuck Perrin was coming from so far away and he was so high on Percy's prospects, Percy's father felt obligated to accept his offer to take Percy and him to dinner after the meet.

It was not until after dinner – when he thanked Mr. Perrin and said good night to his father and excused himself from the table at the fancy steakhouse that Mr. Perrin had taken them to – that Percy finally set out for Callie's.

By then, Callie had already told her parents that Percy was coming over to help her research a paper she was writing about the differences between the lives of teenagers today versus those poor fools who were teenagers in the 1980's. Which was why Percy suggested in a loud voice for Callie's mom to hear, that they download _Sixteen Candles_ on Netflix. It was a movie Callie had never seen, and the way it turned out, she did not like all that much anyway.

They watched the movie on 52' plasma flat screen in Callie's den, and – all through the first half of it, at least – they managed to behave themselves like a couple of right-thinking young adults. They kept their hands to themselves and their eyes on the TV screen and their minds on the changes Molly Ringwald was going through.

At least Percy did.

Callie was having a hard time relating to Molly, and after awhile, when she became tired of trying, she asked Percy if he was ever going to tell her how his dinner with the scout from Miami had gone.

"Sure," said Percy. He had not meant to keep it from her. He told her it had gone okay, the steak was good, the scout seemed like a nice enough guy, and, he guessed, if he was going to go to college, Miami might be as good a place as anywhere else.

Which made Callie laugh.

Which surprised Percy.

Callie said she was sorry, but Percy was kidding, wasn't he? The University of Miami might be many things, she said, but it definitely was not in a league with the first-class schools where the really first-class people went. It wasn't Yale, she said, or Stanford or even Florida.

_Or Texas_, thought Percy.

"It's _Miami!_" said Callie, as if its second-class status was so obvious that anybody with half a brain could see it.

Percy was so startled by Callie's attitude – _It's got to be something she picked up from Whosee-whatzits,_ he thought – that he was about to lie to her and tell her he was only kidding about Miami being as good a school as any. However, he happened to notice Callie's mother was standing at the door.

She and Callie's father had spent the night lurking around the living room, just down the hall. But now, she'd come to say good night.

Which she did. She said good night.

And Callie said good night.

And Percy said good night.

And Callie's mother said good night again.

And then she and Callie's father headed upstairs to bed.

At which point – forget it! – Percy and Callie were in each other's arms before her parents where halfway up the stairs. They had been sitting on this big old leather couch up until then, but after a second, they were not sitting anymore.

While their explorations of one another had never gone beyond the surface up until then, now they found that surfaces were no longer adequate to their needs. Before they were through, Percy and Callie had become as familiar with one another as they could get without anybody actually removing anybody's clothing.

Finally, long after _Sixteen Candles_ had come to an end, Callie said enough. It was late, she said, time for Percy to go.

And so he went.

But not before he and Callie had spent another ten or fifteen minutes saying good night at Callie's front door.

It was not yet one a.m. when Percy hit the street. He felt like walking. It was not a bad night for November.

_Not bad at all,_ he told himself.

Walking through the park at this hour was asking for trouble, so he decided he would head down to Central Park South and walk around the park. It was a lot longer that way and it would take a lot more time, but that was okay. He needed the time to think.

Something was bothering him and he could not figure out what it was.

It was not the thing with Miami, even though it was weird that Callie had jumped on him for that. Obviously, as far as she was concerned, when it came to making plans for the future, there was only one way to go – the "really first-class" way – and one place to get to – the top. He could not deny that he had been kind of thrown by Callie's reaction. He was happy that his future meant so much to her. He had to admit, when it came right down to it, he was not so sure that what she had to say was wrong.

So, it was not the thing with Miami that was bothering him.

But something was.

Because he was not jumping up and down and counting his blessings and praising the Lord.

Which he ought to be.

Because the most desirable woman in the whole world seemed to think that he was the most desirable man in the whole world. Or, at least, the next thing to it. Although it was hard to believe – even for an occasionally swellheaded hotshot like him – it seemed like Callie Forbes-Buchanan could not get enough of him!

Since he could not get enough of her either, what more could a guy ask for? Especially when you considered the odds on such an unlikely situation ever coming to pass.

So why wasn't he jumping up and down, etc.?

Because -

_That's all we ever do!_

He was halfway home before he realized it.

The whole thing between them was sex.

All the time they spent together, if they were not actually all over each other, they were either looking for someplace to go where they could be all over each other or they were sneaking back from someplace where they had been all over each other.

It was as if that was all they had on their minds.

This was close to true.

At least in Percy's case. He did sometimes think about where their being all over each other might lead. He thought about it – imagined it, actually – quite often. Particularly in bed at night, before he fell asleep. The thing was, as astonishing as all the kissing and touching was, it still left Percy wanting more.

Not more kissing and touching or even more physical intimacy. Although he wanted that, too.

But more of Callie.

The way he felt about Callie, if he did not love her and want to make love to her, he would still give anything just to get to know her, just to spend some easy time with her and share some ordinary pleasures with her.

Somehow, they never seemed to have enough time for much of that. It seemed as if their chance to form a real friendship was withering away in the heat of their desire.

Percy was afraid, if they kept on the way they were going, but the time they came around to making love, they would be perfect strangers.

He was not about to let that happen.

By the time he arrived home early in the morning, he had decided to cut way back on all the kissing and touching. In fact, before he went to bed, he had made himself a promise.

He and Callie were going to spend the afternoon – Saturday afternoon – together. Percy promised himself, no matter how great the temptation, he would get through the whole day without kissing Callie even once, without ever taking her in his arms, without even so much as touching her.

Except for maybe just holding her hand in a friendly way every now and then.

Only now, as he stands under the marquee and sees Callie striding down the street, coming to meet him, Percy feels an incredible pang of regret. Reminded how beautiful Callie is, he wonders why on earth he ever made such a stupid promise and how on earth he will ever get himself to keep it.

From half a block away, in her black jacket, jeans and knee high black boots, Callie looks like a model fresh off the runway at Fashion Week.

"Percy Jackson Fan Club reporting for duty," says Callie.

Looking over her shoulder, as if he expected to see a large crowd trailing behind her, Percy says, "Is this all of you?"

"We're a very exclusive club," Callie explains.

"I see," says Percy. "Then I guess there wouldn't be any point in a shmuck like me applying for membership."

"Between you and me?" asks Callie.

Percy nods.

"You'd be wasting your time," Callie tells him.

Percy laughs and then, without thinking about it, he reaches out to take Callie in his arms, catches himself at the last second, throws his arms wide enough to encompass the while city, and says, "Where to?"

"Wither thou goest?" says Callie.

"Oohh!" says Percy. "Literary!"

"Biblical," says Callie, correcting him.

"Are you suggesting the Bible isn't literature?" he asks her.

"Heaven forbid!" says Callie.

And they both laugh.

And Callie takes Percy's arm.

_Whoops!_ Thinks Percy. But he can't help smiling and feeling a certain sense of relief, as he realizes that Callie is not bound by the terms of his vow.

"Where to?" says Callie.

Since the plan was just to get together and hang out, Percy has no plans. "It's too nice a day to spend cooped up in a dark theater, watching a wonderful movie, right?"

"Have you got one in mind?" asks Callie.

"Kind of," says Percy.

While looking for movies online, Percy noticed that _Up In The Air_ was playing at the Theatre 80 on St. Marks Place. He heard that it received rave reviews and he is secure enough in his masculinity to admit that he has a bit of a man-crush on George Clooney. He blames his mom for making him watch old episodes of _ER _with her.

"It's too nice a day," says Callie.

"Yeah," says Percy. "I thought so."

"And anyway," says Callie, "I don't like George Clooney."

"Your only flaw as a human being," Percy tells her.

She shrugs. "It's always something!" she says. "So, where to?"

Like a frontier scout in a John Wayne Western, Percy lifts from his saddle, looks around, gets his bearings, sinks back down in the saddle, nods south and says, "Over yonder!"

Smiling, Callie takes Percy's hand and together they set out walking southward.

They are not planning, either of them, to walk as far as Greenwich Village, which is about ten miles south of the Loews Orpheum Theater. It's such a nice day and once they start walking, there does not seem to be any good reason to stop. The rhythm of their walking and the easy conversation it generates – like lyrics floating on top of a tune – turn the simple act of getting here to there into something like a dance.

Nonetheless, over an hour and nearly ten miles later, Percy and Callie have both worked up more than enough appetite to polish off the subs that they buy from an Italian deli that they discover in the West Village, not far from the piers that overlook the Hudson River. When lunch is over, sitting at the end of one of the piers around Christopher Street, feeling fat and happy, Percy looks over at the beautiful young woman sitting beside him.

Her feet dangling and swinging over the edge of the pier, Callie is looking down into the depths of the river, but her thoughts are a million miles away. In contrast to the sunlight playing on the water behind her, her expression is dark and serious. And yet to Percy, she is no less beautiful in this somber mood than she is when her mood is bright and shining – no less beautiful and no less desirable.

At this moment, he'd give anything if he could just put his arm around her, hug her to him, look over at her and catch her looking over at him and smile at her and see her – as he leans to kiss her – smiling back at him. But up until now, Percy has stuck to the promise he made himself, and so far, he and Callie have been having a good time, just hanging out. Which is exactly what Percy hoped would happen when he made his promise to himself.

So, he reasons, if he were to break his promise to himself now, after he's received what he hoped for, not only would he feel like he could not keep a promise that he made to himself, but he would also feel like he was being ungrateful for his good luck. Percy reminds himself that tomorrow is another day and he makes up his mind to stick to him promise, straight through to the end.

"Soho?" he says.

Callie turns to him.

"Check out the galleries?" he says. "See what the painters are finding to paint these days? See what the smart gallery-goers are finding to wear?"

In a flash, Callie is back from the land of clouds and shadows. She is smiling and then she is on her feet and reaching down to give Percy a hand.

As he smiles, takes her hand and gets to his feet, Percy wonders what was troubling Callie. It occurs to him that he might ask her. But he decides not to. _If it's important,_ he tells himself, _she'll tell me in her own good time._

They set out for Soho.

About a dozen blocks and fifteen galleries later, Percy is standing in the Leica Gallery near Lafayette Street, trying to concentrate on the paintings and sculptures in their current show. Nothing that he sees compares with the sight of Callie – moving among the canvases and constructions, mingling with the crowd.

"Now _that,_" he tells himself, "is art!"

"What are you doing?" Callie caught him studying her.

"Taking your picture," he tells her.

"With what?"

"My mind's eye."

"Do you always do that?"

"No," says Percy. "Sometimes I take it with a camera."

She does not believe him. "You do?"

"I did," he tells her. "Once."

"When?"

"Thursday evening."

Callie shakes her head. "We went for ice cream, Thursday evening."

"And I was late," he reminds her.

"Yes," she remembers. "A little."

"Except I _wasn't_ late," he tells her. "I got to Serendipity before you did. I waited across the street with my camera. I took a bunch of shots of you - coming down the street, walking into Serendipity, looking around for me, not seeing me, checking out the guy with the red hair…"

"I was not checking him out!"

"I have proof!"

"Sure you do."

"You want to see?"

"Yes."

"Come on." Percy takes her hand and starts for the door.

"Wait a minute. Where are we going?"

"My apartment."

Callie smiles at him, like she knows what is on his mind. "Uh-uh," she says.

Percy laughs.

"My mom's home," he tells her.

"Are you sure?" asks Callie.

"Do I look like the kind of guy who would lure an innocent girl up to his love nest in the broad daylight?"

"Yes," says Callie. But then she laughs and agrees to go with him.

When they arrive at Percy's apartment, there is a note waiting on the table just inside the front door. Percy's mother has gone to dinner and a movie with Paul and won't be home until later. There's chicken in the fridge, pizza in the freezer, and fresh homemade blue cookies in the jar on the counter.

"I'd better go," says Callie.

"Why?" asks Percy. His mind is racing a million miles a minute, considering the immediate possibilities, reconsidering last night's vows, weighing one consideration against the other. "I've been a perfect gentleman all day," he says. "Haven't I?"

"Yes," says Callie, as if it had just dawned on her and she cannot believe it. "How come?"

Percy shrugs. "Just for a change," he says.

Callie smiles. "Have I been going too fast for you?" she teases. She moves closer to him. "I've tried to be gentle." She lifts her hand to his cheek. "But you are such a hottie!"

She kisses him.

And he kisses her back.

After a second, Callie pulls away from him. "Wait a minute!" she says. "This is working out just like you planned it, isn't it?"

Percy laughs. "No," he says. "It isn't. I just wanted to show you the pictures. I swear!"

But she doesn't believe him. So Percy sighs, takes her hand, looks into her eyes and says, "You know I love you."

Callie nods.

"But do you know that I like you, too?"

"Percy…."

"I don't know you as well as I want to yet," he tells her. "Nowhere near. And you don't really know me, yet. I want us to be close. Like best friends. Don't you?"

Callie does not say anything. For a second, she just stands there, looking into Percy's eyes. There's something in her expression that reminds Percy of the way she looked when they were back at the pier and she was looking down into the water and drifting off into space.

After a moment, she says, "_Are_ there any pictures?"

Percy smiles. "Do I look like the kind of guy who –"

"Yes," she tells him.

"Right this way," he says. Taking her hand, he leads her across the living room to his bedroom door. Stopping at the door, he says, "I'll wait here."

Callie looks at him and nods. "Where are they?" she asks.

"You can't miss them," he tells her.

Percy reaches into his room and turns on the light. The wall at the far end of the room is lit and covered with cork. Pinned up on it – arranged and lighted like a photo exhibition in a gallery – are about a dozen different photographs of Callie.

Shot in moody black-and-white, blown up and printed on matte-finished paper, the photographs range from extreme close-ups that hint at smoky secrets deep in Callie's eyes, to full-figure action shots that capture her coltish verve and her high sense of style.

Standing in the doorway, Callie cannot believe what she sees. She glances over at Percy, and then, like a sleepwalker, she steps inside his room.

Percy watches from the doorway as Callie walks to the center of the room, stops and stands, running her eyes over the collection shifting her attention from one shot to the next.

From where he is standing, Percy cannot see the expression on Callie's face or guess her reaction. After awhile, she begins moving forward, moving in on the photographs, moving slowly and carefully, almost as if she were stalking them.

While Percy watches her and waits for her reaction, it occurs to him for the very first time that Callie could be really pissed at him for sneaking pictures of her without her permission. Or, even worse, even if she does not mind his having taken her picture, she might hate the pictures he took. When he thinks about it now, the pictures are not very glamorous. They weren't supposed to be. They were just supposed to be true. Not everybody prefers true to glamorous. Callie might be one of those who don't. The thing is, there's no way of telling, one way or the other, from where Percy is standing.

Finally, just when he thinks he cannot wait another second to hear what Callie thinks, she says, "Wow."

Just like that.

Not loud or excited.

She just says it.

"Wow."

Like that.

Percy says, "Wow?" He steps inside his room.

"I really look…" she can't find the word.

Percy moves in beside her and follows her gaze to his favorite shot of her. "Beautiful," he says

Callie shakes her head. "No," she says. "Well, yes. If you mean the photographs. Yes, they are. But I've never seen myself this way. Is this how I look?"

"To me," Percy tells her.

"I look so…"

"What?"

"I don't know," she says. "Kind of earthy. And real. But not hard. Soft. But strong."

Callie turns to him. There are tears in her eyes. And now, as a single tear spills over and runs, glistening, down her cheek, Percy takes her in his arms. And he kisses her. This time, unlike all the times before, there is no rush in their kiss and no desperation.

There is, instead, an exquisite tenderness in the way their lips meet and melt together.

There is a grace in the way they settle onto Percy's bed.

In the way Callie guides Percy's hand to her chest.

In the way that Percy -

And then, Percy hears the click of the front door opening.

He hears two people talking.

And then he hears his mom's voice calling, "Percy?"

* * *

**A/N: Phew! That was one hell of a long chapter, huh? I wanted to really take my time to elaborate on the emotions that Percy was feeling - his desire for Callie and his fear of that desire ruining everything. Then, I was having too much fun with the date. Notice how they almost went to the same movie at Annabeth and Luke? And how they were at the same pier as them but at a different time of day? Near misses and lost opportunities. But rest assure, Percy and Annabeth _will_ meet!**

**I would be lost without my loyal readers and reviewers. Thank you for taking the time to read my story and to provide feedback. For those who just joined in on the fun, welcome and I hope you enjoy the ride.**

**Annabeth chapter in the works. Until then...**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading! MFP**


	17. Chapter 16  Annabeth

**Chapter 16 – Annabeth**

Annabeth was not exactly surprised.

When Annabeth came out of the ladies' room at Mikey's Lounge, she had expected to find Luke where she had left him, sitting at a tiny table between the packed bar and the crowded dance floor. But when she saw he was not there, it did not really surprise her.

She tried to tell herself that he had probably gone off to the men's room. But she knew, if she looked, she would find him out on the dance floor, dancing with Kendra Martin.

Kendra Martin was one of those girls Luke sometimes buddied around with. She was probably the cutest of the bunch, if you happen to like willowy brunettes with big black eyes, flat chests and no butt. From the way Kendra practically gaped at Luke when they had first come in – and the way she had been sneaking peeks at him ever since – Annabeth could see that she had come up with a whole new attitude toward her old buddy. Suddenly, she seemed less interested in being Luke's buddy than she was getting her paws on Luke's body.

The only question in Annabeth's mind was just how Kendra had managed to achieve her goal so quickly. Her trip to the ladies' room had not taken more than two minutes.

As she ran her eyes over the dance floor, jam-packed with the usual Friday night crowd, Annabeth wondered how Kendra had managed to shake loose of Howie "The Hulk" Hodgedon, the overbearing offensive lineman she was with.

When she saw that Annabeth's back was turned and decided to make her grab for Luke, just where did Kendra tell Howie she was going?

That's what Annabeth was wondering when she spotted them, just where she thought she would – out on the dance floor, bopping around and having what appeared to be a real swell time together.

The odd thing was, up until that moment, Annabeth had been kind of pissed off with Kendra for abducting her date. But now that she saw Luke, she realized she couldn't really blame her. If she had been in Kendra's place, she probably would have taken a shot at Luke herself. He looked that hot!

Partly, it was the light blue polo shirt that matched his eyes perfectly. And the dark jeans that hugged his butt and thighs just so. But mostly, it was his new semipunk haircut – which was crewcut on the sides, long at the top and featured a wave of curly hair that slashed across his forehead.

That was the sweetest thing.

The way it had come about.

Tuesday, after school, Luke had suggested to Annabeth that she should "try something" with her hair. At the time, he was driving her over to the mall, where she planned on getting her hair washed and trimmed. But taking Luke's suggestion to heart, Annabeth had thrown caution to the wind and wound up getting bangs. On Taylor Swift, it may look beautiful and sophisticated, but on Annabeth, it made her look like she was ten.

When she came out of the salon where she had it done, Luke was waiting for her. Even though when he saw what she had done and said that he loved it, Annabeth burst into tears.

At that moment, the way she felt, she thought she might as well get all her hair shaved off and – while she was at it – take holy vows and hide her head under a habit.

Luke tried to tell her it was not that bad and that it would just take a little getting used to. But looking at herself in his rearview mirror, Annabeth realized that she went from the girl who did not worry much about her appearance to caring _way too_ much – all at the blink of an eye, or more like with a few snips of a scissors.

Annabeth told Luke to take her home, straight home, with no stopping off on the way.

The truth was, she was mad at him. For making her do it. For making her get her bangs cut. For making her look ridiculous.

Which, she was certain, she did.

The fact that Luke had merely suggested that she "try something" with her hair – and had never mentioned getting her bangs cut or anything else – Annabeth completely forgot. She was devastated. And so far as she was concerned, one way or another, Luke was to blame.

Once Annabeth arrived home, she raced upstairs to her bathroom, jumped out of her clothes and hopped into the shower. She hoped that by trying to style her hair herself – which she never really done before – she could somehow salvage her new hair style.

It didn't work, of course.

She even spent a few hours online researching hair extensions and seeing whether or not they would work for her.

That didn't give her much hope, either.

Wednesday morning, when she looked at herself in her bathroom mirror, she started crying, all over again.

When it came time to leave for school, she told her stepmother she wasn't going – not until her bangs grew out. Until then, she told her, they could pretend she had pneumonia. She might even have it, she told Helen. Now that she thought about it, she _did_ feel kind of feverish.

Her stepmother – who thought she looked "edgy and hip" with her "new do"- wouldn't go along. And anyway, she told Annabeth, Luke was already parked outside in the driveway, waiting to drive her to school. She could not imagine Annabeth would want to stand him up.

"Oh, yes I would!" Annabeth told her. "I'd like to stand him up in front of a firing squad!"

With that, she grabbed her books, stormed out the door, and charged across the driveway to Luke's car – keeping her head down and her eyes in the ground the whole way; hoping that, somehow, if she didn't look at Luke, Luke wouldn't be able to see her.

Annabeth did not look up until she was in the car and sitting next to him. That was when she finally looked over at Luke and saw what he had done to _his_ hair. It was such a shock – _He's got ears!_ She thought – that she broke out laughing. She knew it was rude, but she couldn't help herself.

"Feel better now?" Luke asked her.

He had done it for her! Luke had gotten a crazy new haircut just for her!

As Luke started up the car and they set out for school, he told Annabeth how – after he dropped her off the day before – he had driven back to the mall and gone into the same salon where she had gotten herself fringed and got himself chopped.

"Why should you be the only person at school with a weird new haircut?" he asked her. As if he were jealous of all the attention she was bound to get.

Which was such a bizarre idea, Annabeth had to laugh.

Finally.

After all, it _was_ pretty silly – the whole thing with her hair. Even if it _did_ look weird. So what? It wasn't like it was forever. In about a month or two, it would grow out. That's what Luke was trying to tell her by getting his hair cut. And that's what – thanks to Luke – Annabeth finally realized.

It was the sweetest thing.

The new clothes with that went with Luke's new haircut came the next day. Luke said he had bought them to show the guys who kidded him about his haircut that he could not be kidded out of looking any way he wanted to.

But Annabeth noticed – once he started dressing like an Abercrombie & Fitch model – the girls at school started looking at Luke at little differently than they had before.

They started _looking_ at him.

Like Kendra Martin had.

In a way, Annabeth didn't mind.

But in another way –

She looked around the bar room, searching for Howie Hodgedon. As huge as he was, he wasn't hard to spot. Annabeth did not know Howie all that well, but since their respective dates were dancing with one another, she felt they had enough in common to start up a conversation.

She wandered over to Howie's corner of the bar and said hello.

Howie did not seem to recognize who she was at first. When she nodded toward Kendra and Luke and said "How did that happen?" Howie managed to put two and two together.

"I don't know," he said. "He walked over and asked me if I'd mind him dancing with Kendra."

"He asked _her?"_

"He asked _me_," Howie told her. "And before I could say 'Yes, I mind,' she said, 'No, he doesn't mind,' and there they are."

Annabeth followed his gaze and outstretched hand to the dance floor, where they certainly were and where they certainly seemed to be having a fine old time.

"Did you do something to your hair?" Howie asked.

"Want to dance?" she replied.

Howie could not have looked more surprised if she had asked him if he wanted to go to bed with her.

"Come on," she said. Taking his hand, she led him out onto the dance floor.

* * *

**A/N: A short chapter, but I like how it shows the dynamic between Annabeth and Luke. No worries my dear readers - a super long Annabeth chapter is in the works!**

**If you have any thoughts or something to say, I would love to hear it. If not, until next time!**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading! - MFP**


	18. Chapter 17  Percy

Chapter 17 – Percy

_And you want her, and she wants you, _

_No one, no one, no one ever, is to blame. _

_No one ever is to blame. _

_No one ever,_

_Is to blame._

That song from Howard Jones has been running through Percy's head for weeks now – ever since he walked Callie home from the Victory Dance. That fateful night seems like a life time ago.

Percy and Callie were standing under a crystal chandelier in the entryway of her house. They stood there, in each other's arms before a huge mirror that presided over the entryway at the bottom of the staircase.

Percy was thinking how good it felt and how right, when he felt something tickling his cheek. Opening his eyes, he leaned his cheek away from Callie's and saw – to his amazement – that Callie was crying. "What's wrong?"

She just looked at him for a second and then she said, "Don't you know?"

From the way she said it, Percy guessed he ought to, since Callie seemed to think he was to blame for whatever it was that was making her cry. But he didn't have a clue. "No," he told her.

Callie shook her head. "What's wrong," she sobbed, "is how much I want you!" Throwing herself against him, she buried her face in his chest and unleashed a torrent of sobs, one more heartrending than the next.

Percy felt happier than he had ever felt in his whole life.

Callie's bed was a four-poster, as wide as it was long. The sheets, edged with lace, were icy cool against Percy's skin. Callie's skin against his was electric.

He had made love before. Or at least he thought he had. But he had never made love to someone he loved before, and now that he had, he realized that he'd never made love before.

And now it's over and he's lying there and Callie is lying next to him and he's feeling better than anybody has a right to feel, when suddenly, from out of nowhere, he flashes on Jack Hamilton. He'd rather he hadn't, of course. The truth is, as good a guy as Jack is, Percy feels a little bad about stealing his girl. It's a sincere feeling. But since, at the same time, he also feels pretty terrific about stealing Jack's girl, it doesn't last for more than an instant.

"Callie?"

"Mmm." She is turned away from him. He kisses the back of her neck. "Mmm."

"I love you." He runs the tips of his fingers along her shoulder and down her side and brings his hand to rest at her narrow waist.

She turns and looks over her shoulder at him. "I love you, too," she says. She rolls over and leans her head down and kisses he chest. Then, looking up at him, she smiles and says, "You must think I'm an awful slut."

"No," he tells her. "I think you are a wonderful slut."

Callie laughs and he reaches down and lifts her up on top of him.

_So beautiful,_ he tells himself. _And,_ he tells himself, as he brings her mouth to his, _so incredibly mine!_

_

* * *

_

**A/N: I think the chapter speaks for itself. **

**Mega Annabeth chapter in the works and should be up by the weekend. **

**Thank you for all the kind reviews and I will get to them this week.**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading - MFP**


	19. Chapter 18  Annabeth

**Chapter 18 – Annabeth**

"Please," Luke begged.

"No," Annabeth told him, gently but firmly.

It was Saturday night. They have been invited to a party at Thalia's.

"And," she said, "would you kindly remove your hand from…Thank you."

They had journeyed as far as Thalia's driveway.

"Are you ready?" she asked him.

They had been sitting in Luke's car, kissing and fooling around for the past twenty minutes.

"Are you kidding?"

Annabeth laughed. "Come on," she said.

She climbed out of the car and began weaving her way through the maze of parked cars that clogged the circular driveway that led up to Thalia's front door.

There was no way Thalia could have heard Annabeth ringing her doorbell over the din of the music that came pounding through her door. There was no way she could have heard Luke banging the brass door knocker, either. Somehow, she much have received the message that someone had arrived on her doorstep, because – just as they were about to let themselves in – Thalia opened the door and saved them the trouble.

"We can't get rid of Shannon," she said, by the way of a greeting. "She's having too much fun." Turning to Annabeth, she said "You've never met Shannon, have you?"

"No," said Annabeth.

"Come on," said Thalia. "I'll introduce you. Maybe you can think of a way to bum her out." Taking Annabeth's hand, Thalia led her and Luke through the crowd gathered in her palatial front hallway with its elegant winding stairway, and into the living room that was bigger than any living room Annabeth had ever set foot in before.

There was a fire roaring in the great marble fireplace at the center of the room, throwing light and shadow over the crowd of kids who were dancing, talking, eating, drinking, leaping and sprawling all over the place.

Among them, gyrating in the flickering firelight at the center of the room, Thalia spotted her mother.

Shannon, as Thalia called her, was getting down with Troy Giles, who had been the running back on the football team last year, until he tore his ACL in the game against Fairfield. Shannon was not young anymore, but she was still very attractive and she had a look in her eye that a man might easily take for a willingness to meet him halfway. Especially if the man was a boy like Troy Giles.

The joke about Troy was, even though he couldn't run anymore, he was still just as fast as he had always been. In fact, watching Troy dancing with Shannon, seeing the way he was looking at her and she was looking back at him, Annabeth had the uneasy feeling that Troy was seriously thinking about adding Thalia's mother to his list of conquests.

It was not any of Annabeth's business, of course, but the idea of Troy and Shannon – just thinking about it – gave her the creeps.

"She's a great dancer," she told Thalia.

"She was a very successful dancer and actress back in the day. It's in her blood," said Thalia. "Along with a judgment-impairing level of alcohol. Gin, last I noticed."

When the music finally stopped - when Lady Gaga finally ended her "Bad Romance," and Troy looked like he might have figured out how to start one – Thalia brought Annabeth over to meet her mother.

"Annabeth Chase," she said, "this is Shannon, who is old enough to be my mother, but not necessarily old enough to act like she is."

"Am I being naughty?" Shannon asked her daughter.

"Is the Nile a river?" Thalia replied.

"How do you do, Annabeth?" said Shannon. "I was just about to put myself to bed."

"Not yet!" Troy protested. "The night's still young."

"So are you, my dear," said Shannon, patting Troy's cheek.

Troy looked like somebody just stepped on his pet frog.

"Nice to have met you, Annabeth," said Shannon. "And –" she looked at Luke. "Luke!" she said. "Is that you?"

"Afraid so," said Luke, smiling shyly.

"Poor thing," said Shannon. "Did it hurt much?"

"Mother!" said Thalia.

But Luke laughed.

"Naughty again!" said Shannon. "Well, that does it, I'm sure you are happy to hear. Good night dear." With a wave of her hand, she turned and walked to the French doors at the back of the room, stepped out onto the patio and moved off toward the pool house, where she'd promised Thalia she'd spend the night.

The moment she was gone, Thalia walked over to the iPod docked in the Bose system and stopped Britney in mid-song. "The bar is open and if you are drinking, you have fifteen seconds to hand over your keys. I will not allow any of my friends to be stupid enough to wrap their car around a tree. There's plenty of room for you to stay here, just be sure you leave them approximately the same way you found them, okay? Now that the Public Service Announcement is done, did somebody say 'Let's party'?"

Somebody shouted, "Let's party!"

Then everybody did.

Thalia hit play on the iPod and turned the volume up to dance-club level.

A crowd stormed the bar.

A bunch of people went outside to have chicken fights in the heated pool.

Luke looked at Annabeth. "Let's party," he said.

"Is there a Ping-Pong table?" she asked him.

"Don't you want to dance?"

"I'm the world's best Ping-Pong player," she said. Annabeth said that not because she was the best. She was pretty good. She just didn't feel very comfortable. She didn't know many people at the party – this was not her crowd. She really likes Thalia, but she seems to have disappeared. Suddenly, she was missing Grover, Katie and Lily.

"It's downstairs," Luke said.

"Best two out of three," said Annabeth.

"For the World Championship," he said. He showed her the way downstairs to the game room. The room – the whole downstairs – was empty. Except for the steady thump of bass, reverberating through the walls and reminding her of the party that was going on above, Annabeth might have imagined that she and Luke had the whole house to themselves.

They warmed up. When Luke saw that Annabeth was not going to be the pushover he had imagined, he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and got down to business. He was good. He was fast and he was flashy, but he had no patience. He slammed everything and, about half the time, his shots sailed clear off the table.

Playing defensively and using a lot of backspin – a trick she had learned at camp the last few summers – Annabeth won two of the first three games.

Then, when Luke suggested they make it best out of five, she won a third.

So they made it the best of seven and then the best of nine until, finally, after they had played twenty games, the battle for the World Championship was tied at ten games apiece.

By then, both Annabeth and Luke were so involved in the contest, they had pretty much forgotten about the party going on upstairs and the parties going on in the bedrooms on the floor above that.

Which was just fine and dandy with Annabeth.

Nonetheless, when Luke suggested that they make _this_ final game their _final_ game and not just _another_ final game like all the other final games they had played up until now, Annabeth agreed. They had been going at it, nonstop, for over two hours by then and, finally, she told herself, enough was enough.

At the same time, it occurred to Annabeth that she should lose the _final_ game – that she should let Luke win the World Championship. Winning meant more to him than it did to her. It meant much more, in fact, that she had imagined before she had starting going out with him.

Before she had the chance to know him better, Annabeth had always imagined, from the way Luke kept himself apart from everything that was going on at school – from sports, clubs, and dating – that winning and losing did not mean all that much to him.

As she had learned more about him, she had discovered that wasn't so. The truth was, winning meant so much to Luke, unless he was pretty sure that he could win, he simply would not bother to compete.

Like when he was in _The Philadelphia Story._ He had told Annabeth that he had been so bad at rehearsals and so sure that he would make a fool of himself when it came time to perform that – right up until the last minute – he was seriously considering just walking out.

In fact, he told her, after he went through the disastrous dress rehearsal, he was all ready to walk out the door and let Grover play the part. If she had not called him down to the cafeteria for the last-minute "coaching session," he would have.

He had come that close.

He was that competitive.

_Or was he just a coward? _Annabeth thought at the time. As much as that thought nagged at her, she tried to push it towards the back of her mind. Luke was her boyfriend and she should not think those things of him.

_But that doesn't mean I have to let him win._ If Luke was going to win, she decided, he would have to win fair and square. Telling herself that Gloria Steinem and all the other feminists in the world would be pleased with her decision, she tossed the ball in the air and banged her first serve over the net. From that moment on, with both Annabeth and Luke playing their hardest and best, the battle for the World Championship was fast and furious. All through the game, as they worked their way up to the final point, the lead kept seesawing back and forth between them.

Finally, with the score 20-19 and Annabeth serving for the game, Luke returned one of Annabeth's put-away shots – but he returned it so high that he set her up for another one. As Annabeth set herself to bang the ball home, Luke retreated from the table. Smiling to herself, Annabeth resisted the urge to kill and instead, teased the ball over the net. Too far from the net to even bother trying to reach the ball, Luke watched as it dribbled across the table, bounced on the floor and rolled away.

"Best out of a hundred?" asked Luke.

Annabeth laughed and shook her head.

"Yeah," said Luke. "We should get back to the party."

"Party?" asked Annabeth.

It was a fair question. By the time they arrived upstairs to the living room, most of the crowd had gone. Where they had gone – whether they had gone home or just upstairs – Annabeth could not tell. There were still a few people hanging around the living room, but hardly anybody was dancing anymore. It was like all the drinking and dancing had tired everybody out. People were just sitting around, doing more of the same.

"Looks like the party's over," said Annabeth.

"Not until you've seen the tree house," said Luke.

Annabeth just looked at him.

"You've got to see it," said Luke. "It's like going to Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower. Thalia's dad built it for her years ago when she was just a kid and when, well, when he still cared about her."

"Are you sure she won't mind," asked Annabeth.

"I am sure," said Luke. "She probably would have shown it to you herself if we didn't disappear for so long."

Luke took her hand and they headed outside. Thalia's backyard was expansive and dotted with maple and pine trees. Nestled high up in a cluster of pine trees by the pool was Thalia's tree house. From the ground, it looked more like a "tree mansion." Climbing up the pieces of wood nailed into the tree, Luke led Annabeth through the trapdoor in the floor.

Luke did not just open a door to a tree house. He opened the door to a room from another period of time – a playroom for a little girl from long ago. There were framed illustrations from children's books and fairy tales hanging on the walls. There were stuffed animals and dolls with porcelain faces lined up along the shelves. They were toys – a child's size tea service, paint and easel set, a doll-size bassinet – in every corner. There were lace curtains tied back with silk ribbons at the real-glass windows and lace-trimmed cushions on the seats and couch.

It all looked so perfect, so like a room in a museum, that Annabeth was reluctant to take another step further.

"Are you sure it's alright?" she asked again.

"Sure," said Luke. "She still uses it."

"For what?"

Luke laughed. "Not for what you think. Thalia is complicated. She comes off all tough and hardcore, but she is really this sweet girl inside. She was a Daddy's Girl and did everything she could to please him. When he just up and left her, it left a mark. She hides that girly side from the public, but when she gets really sad or scared, she comes up here to escape."

Annabeth's heart melted at hearing this. She made herself a promise then and there that she would reach out to Thalia. Annabeth was lucky, she had her dad and stepmom and they loved her unconditionally. To feel abandoned by the one you love the most, Annabeth could not imagine that type of pain.

"Thank you for showing this to me," she said. Annabeth turned away from him and walked over to the lace-curtained window. Looking out the window, over the backyard, the pool and pool house, she saw the star-studded sky, like a cape of darkest purple, draped over the ridge of black mountains that rose beyond the fields and forests at the edge of town.

She felt Luke's hand at her waist.

She heard his voice, close to her ear. "Pretty, isn't it?"

She leaned back against him, felt his cheek next to hers, and breathed in the scent of his cologne.

"I like the night," she said.

"I like you," said Luke.

"I like you, too."

"I more than like you."

She turned and kissed him. "I more than like you, too."

"I love you," he said. Then he led her over to the couch in the corner.

And he kissed her.

And leaned her back.

And he was on top of her.

And his hands were all over her.

And she didn't care. It felt so good.

"Please," he said. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

"I know."

"We can't keep doing this," said Luke.

"I know."

"I can't take it."

"I know," she said. "I can't, either."

Annabeth never really thought too much about her virginity. She was proud of it and protective of it, but it was something that was just always there. This was first time that she truly thought about it, about what it meant and about what losing it meant. This moment, this first time – there would be no going back.

"So what are we going to do?" asked Luke.

"I'm afraid."

"Don't be."

She knew it didn't hurt. No more than a bee sting or a tetanus shot, she'd heard. So it wasn't that she was afraid of.

What _was_ she afraid of?

That he'd think less of her? Think she was easy or loose or something? That she'd lose him because she'd let him make love to her?

That didn't make sense.

What then?

That somebody might walk in on them? Up here?

Not likely.

But here, in Thalia's tree house? It felt wrong and indecent. And she told Luke so.

As much as he hated to admit it, Annabeth could see that what she said had an effect on him.

"You are right," he said in a hurtful tone. "But, can we just stay here for a little bit? I am not ready to let you go just yet."

Annabeth answered him with a kiss.

When the kiss ended, Luke looked into her eyes and said, "You're beautiful."

"Thank you," she said. It sounded silly, but she didn't know what else to say. "You're beautiful, too."

Luke laughed, smiled and said, "You must be in love."

Annabeth kissed him and said, "I am."

* * *

**A/N: An interesting chapter, huh? Thoughts, questions, ideas - they are all greatly appreciated.**

**The next Percy chapter should be up this week. And then the drama really starts to unfold.**

**Thank you for all the loyalty and reviews! Keep them coming.**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading - MFP**


	20. Chapter 19  Percy

**Chapter 19 – Percy**

It's Saturday morning, the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

Percy had been pulling double duty swim practices the past few weeks. The morning and afternoon swim practices were in preparation for the JB Cloherty Memorial Thanksgiving Invitational Swim Meet. The meet is to be held on Thanksgiving morning and only the best of the best are invited to attend.

Coach Levine wants everybody in a good frame of mind for the big meet – especially Percy. This is the meet where Percy is projected to break 47.87 and wipe Scott Webber's name from the record books.

To add to the excitement and drama, a man named Michael Bennett is going to be among the fans attending the meet. Mr. Bennett is the head coach from Stanford University and he is coming from California to watch Percy demonstrate his talents in the pool.

Percy intends to give him an impressive demonstration.

By now, Callie has pretty much convinced him that spending four years with "really first-class people" in a "really first-class school" would not be a total waste of his time, no matter what he eventually decides to do with his life. And since Stanford is one of the classiest of the "really first-class schools" and its beautiful buildings are jam-packed with "really first-class people," come Thursday morning, Percy is anxious to prove that he is ready to be "Forever and Forever Stanford Red."

_But that, _he reminds himself, _is Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. And this is Saturday, Callie Forbes-Buchanan Day._

It was Callie's idea to head out of town. When Percy told her about having the day off and how he had to get himself in a good frame of mind for the big meet, Callie said she knew the perfect place to spend the day and the perfect activity to put him in a good frame of mind.

Her parents had this summer place, she said, that they always closed up after Labor Day. She could "borrow" her father's car from the garage where he parked it – he almost never drove himself, she said, and she'd "borrowed" it before – and they could drive up for the day.

So Callie drove her father's big Mercedes and Percy sat beside her and fiddled with her iPod and checked out the view.

They had made it out of the city early, around eight-thirty. They wanted to make the most of their time together. By nine o'clock, the city was behind them and the country was opening up before them.

It all seemed perfect to Percy.

And it would have been perfect. If that had been all there was to it. But there was more to it than that. From out of nowhere, Callie said, "He's coming home."

Percy looked at her.

"For Thanksgiving," she said.

He wasn't surprised.

Percy knew Jack would have to come home, sometime – Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter. He kind of hoped he would make other plans – skiing in Colorado, scuba diving in the Caribbean, wind sailing on the moon, whatever.

But he knew it was an idle hope.

If he was in Jack's shoes, nothing short of death or madness or total amnesia would keep him away from Callie for one second more than he had to be.

So he wasn't surprised that Jack would return. Nonetheless, the news that he was returning hit him like a kick in the gut.

_He's coming home,_ he thought.

"You mean Jack?" he asked. If they were going to talk about him, he decided, they might as well use his name.

Callie nodded. "Tuesday night," she said. "We're going out Wednesday night. Thursday, after the swim meet and football game, he's having Thanksgiving dinner with me and my family."

"Oh?" said Percy. "And what are you doing Friday?" It came out a little sharper than he intended.

"I don't know."

"Saturday?"

"He's supposed to go back Sunday."

Percy knew he had no right to be angry, but he couldn't help it. "Well," he said, "be sure to say hello for me."

Callie looked like he'd slap her in the face. "Percy," she said. "Don't be that way. It's hard enough the way it is."

She was right and he knew it. None of this was her fault. It wasn't anybody's fault, really. It just happened. Here he was, taking it out on her. He felt like a dumb ass. He reached over and put his hand on Callie's shoulder, brushed her hair from her cheek and kissed the hollow between her neck and shoulder.

"You're right," he told her. "I'm sorry."

She reached over and put her hand on his knee. "Anyways," she said, "we've still have today."

Percy put his hand on hers. "Step on it!" he told her.

It was a little after nine-thirty when they arrived. By the time they got the house opened up and the water and heat turned on, it was ten-thirty.

It was a crystal-clear, bright and sunny late autumn day. Percy and Callie spent some time exploring the surrounding woods and lake.

And then exploring each other.

Afterwards, he must have dozed off.

Now, he looks at his watch. It's 3:16. Percy rolls out of bed, pulls on his jeans and wanders out to look for Callie.

As he enters the living room, he sees her through the sliding glass doors that open out onto the porch. She is leaning on the deck's split-wood railing, looking out over the sparkling lake at the foot of the mountain ranges that stretches off to the distant horizon, as far as the eye can see.

Just looking at her – lost in thought, eyes on the horizon, the wind playing in her hair – Percy feels a surge of tenderness so strong and deep, it brings tears to his eyes.

Callie is all he's ever wanted.

Callie is everything he needs.

_Right?_ he thinks. _Whoa, where did that come from?_ Percy tries to push that errant thought out of his mind.

As he slides open the glass door and steps out onto the deck, she turns to him.

She smiles to see him, without a shirt and barefoot, wearing nothing but his jeans. "It's freezing!" she says.

"You have to tell him."

Her smile fades before his eyes. "Tell him what?"

"That you love me."

She sighs and turns and looks away.

He walks over to her and stands behind her and rests his hands on her shoulders. "Do you?" he asks. "Do you love me?"

She nods and says "Yes."

"Will you?" he asks. "Will you tell him?"

Callie turns to him and looks into his eyes. She nods and says, "Yes," and bursts into tears.

Percy takes her in his arms and holds her close.

"It will break his heart," she says.

"Yes," he tells her. "I know. I'm sorry."

"Oh, God!" she sobs.

Percy holds her closer.

He feels the tears burning his eyes.

He can't hold them back.

He doesn't even try.

* * *

**A/N: So Jack's back! What does that mean for this couple? Chapter 21 - Percy, is in the works and it is going to be epic (if I do say so myself). Chapter 20 - Annabeth may be delayed a few days because I am so busy that I am running around like a chicken with it's head cut off that is also on fire :o)**

**Thank you for all the feedback and for continuing to read the story. The moment we are all waiting for is so soon, you can almost taste it.**

**Take care and until next time.**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading - MFP**


	21. Chapter 20  Annabeth

**Chapter 20 – Annabeth**

The sound of the doorbell was still echoing around the house. It was Luke.

Annabeth checked her watch. Seven o'clock. He was right on time, as usual.

She took one last look in the mirror, and then blushing at her own vanity, she tore herself away and hurried off to the door.

"Happy Thanksgiving."

The both said it at the same time – at the moment that Annabeth opened the door and saw Luke standing there, grinning his Luke grin.

They said it and immediately broke out laughing – partly because of how their minds work the same way, but mostly because it wasn't really Thanksgiving. At least not as far as the rest of the world was concerned.

To the rest of the world, it was just a plain old Saturday night. But Annabeth and Luke had their own ideas on the subject. They wanted to spend Thanksgiving together, but Annabeth's parents invited her Uncle Nicky and Aunt Linda and her twelve-year-old cousin, Maddy, over from New York City for the day. And Luke and his parents always spent their Thanksgiving with his grandparents at their place in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

So there was no way.

Until they came up with the idea of celebrating their own personal Thanksgiving, a few days earlier than everybody else celebrated theirs.

They had a lot to be thankful for.

"Is that for me?"

"Oh," said Luke, "Yeah." He'd forgotten that he'd brought Annabeth a flower – a perfect red rose. He had forgotten because he was so blown away by how terrific Annabeth looked.

Annabeth saw how blown away Luke was, and as she accepted the rose from him, she thought that just the look on his face made all the trouble she'd gone to worthwhile.

It was a dress that Annabeth would never be caught dead in a few months ago. It was silky and slinky. Dark grey to match her eyes, it had a cinched waist and a slit that went up to the side, almost to her hip, and a hem that fell just above her knee. With her black stockings, spiked heels and iron-straight hair, Annabeth looked like she was ready to hit the clubs of New York City.

It didn't matter to Annabeth how she looked; it was how she looked to Luke that really mattered to her. It was Luke she dressed for, and she could tell that he liked the way she'd dressed for him by the way he was standing there, undressing her with his eyes.

She lifted the perfect red rose and inhaled its musky sweet perfume and looked into Luke's funny-sad eyes. "Beautiful," she said.

Looking to Annabeth's eyes, Luke nodded and said, "Yes, you are."

He helped her on with her coat, waited while she locked up, walked her to the car and held the door for her as she climbed inside.

She watched him cross around the front of the car and thought about making love to him. Ever since that night in Thalia's tree house, it is all she ever thought about.

Should she?

Shouldn't she?

She wished she had someone to talk to about this. Unfortunately, Grover was about as experienced as she was in the romance department. Well, before Luke, that is. Katie and Lily have had a few boyfriends, but Annabeth is not sure just how serious those relationships were. And, as much as she does not want to admit this out loud, she doesn't really talk to the anymore. This thought is very unsettling to her, but every time she tries to make plans with her old friends, or even call them, Luke comes between them.

It's all Luke. All the time.

"Hungry?" he asked.

"Always," she answered.

"Thirsty?"

"I will be by the time we get there."

"Horny?"

"Drive!" she said.

He laughed. Then, as if he were some semi-punk James Bond, he glanced over at her, lifted one suave eyebrow, and crooned, "My place?"

As blasé as she could be, Annabeth glanced over at Luke, sighed as if she couldn't care less, and said "That was the plan, wasn't it?"

James Bond smiled and nodded. "My place, then," he said. He started up the car, squealed out of the driveway, and zoomed off in the direction of his house.

That _was_ the plan – Thanksgiving for two at Luke's house.

It was the plan that Luke and Annabeth had come up with when Luke's parents announced they were spending the weekend in Atlanta. Luke's dad is a fanatical runner and he was running in a race that weekend. They were also looking into the possibility of opening a branch of Traveler's Gourmet, which was the family business.

The really terrific thing about Luke's parents taking off for the weekend was the fact that Annabeth's parents were taking the off for the weekend, too.

Annabeth's father and stepmother were going into New York City to see a show with Annabeth's Uncle Nicky and Aunt Linda, and after the show they were planning to spend the night in the guest room of her uncle's rambling Fifth Avenue apartment.

Which meant, for their own personal Thanksgiving, Annabeth and Luke had Luke's house all to themselves and all night long to celebrate.

Luke was taking care of everything. He was playing host, chef and chairman of the entertainment and cleanup committees. All that Annabeth had to do was be ready when Luke came to pick her up at seven – which she'd been.

As they raced along the road, just to put them in the Thanksgiving frame of mind, Luke turned on his iPod and played the _"Thanksgiving Song"_ by Adam Sandler.

They were laughing and singing along a few minutes later, when Luke pulled into the driveway that curved around a rolling lawn and climbed the landscaped parking circle at the back of Luke's beautiful fieldstone, cedar and glass house.

"Be it ever so humble," said Luke, as he pulled the car to a stop.

Annabeth had never been to Luke's house before. "It's amazing." she said, as she climbed out of the car.

The house harmonized so perfectly with its surroundings, it seemed to have grown right up out of the hilltop it commanded.

As Luke showed Annabeth to the door, he joked about carrying her over the threshold.

"Is that a proposal?" Annabeth asked him.

Luke smiled and shook his head. "I'm too young to die," he said.

"Then I'll walk," said Annabeth.

Luke opened the door for her.

Inside, the house was like the warmest, most comfortable ski lodge or mountain hideaway you could imagine. Although it was beautifully furnished and richly decorated, there was nothing at all standoffish about it.

"I love it," said Annabeth.

"Champagne?" asked Luke.

Annabeth shrugged. "If it was good enough for the Pilgrims," she said.

Luke laughed and showed Annabeth into the den.

It was a great room – a glassed-in porch, extending out into a backyard that was landscaped like a Japanese garden, with little white stones and huge boulders, evergreen shrubs and trembling groves of white birch.

Luke lifted the bottle of champagne from a silver ice bucket, wrapped a towel around it so it would not drip, popped the cork and poured the pale and effervescing wine into two delicate, narrow-stemmed glasses.

He handed Annabeth her glass and lifted his for a toast. Looking into Annabeth's eyes, he said, "To the one and only Annabeth Chase."

He clinked his glass with hers. "From the bottom of my heart," he said, "thank you."

Annabeth was so happy, she blushed. "Any time."

They drank.

Feeling the champagne buzzing, bittersweet and chilly, on her tongue, Annabeth closed her eyes and tried to memorize the sensation and the perfect moment of which it was a part.

"Help yourself to the hors d'oeuvres," said Luke. "I need a second in the kitchen."

"Can't I help?"

"Uh-huh," said Luke. "It's a surprise."

"It isn't turkey?"

"I didn't say that. Here something to soothe your weary mind." He walked over to the stereo and pushed a button. Music poured out of the speakers that were strategically placed throughout the room.

He smiled at Annabeth, and then he was gone.

Annabeth was sitting on the plush sofa when she heard her phone give a little ping in her purse. Pulling it out, she saw the text from Grover. _Hanging with K, L & gang. U want 2 join?_

A part of her heart melted when she saw the text. Oh how she missed them! Maybe she could convince Luke to meet with up them after dinner. Her fingers were posed to type a quick reply when –

"Grub," Luke announced.

Annabeth let her phone fall back into her purse, her purse fall back onto the sofa and then followed Luke into the dining room.

There were more roses on the table.

And turkey – thin slices of turkey breast, baked and topped with prosciutto ham and melted cheese.

"Wow," said Annabeth, "Remind me to never cook for you."

They ate – the turkey, the asparagus in a white buttery sauce, the plump potato gnocchi, the perfectly dressed green salad, and for dessert, fresh raspberries in heavy cream.

They drank – red wine for Luke and grape juice for Annabeth, who'd poured herself a second glass of champagne while she was waiting and couldn't imagine feeling any better than she did.

They talked.

"Can I sing?" asked Luke.

"You mean now?" asked Annabeth.

Luke laughed. "I mean in a play. On a stage."

"I don't know," said Annabeth.

"I can carry a tune," he said.

"Yeah," said Annabeth. "But how far?"

"That's what I'm asking you,"

"Why?"

Luke shrugged. "Because somebody wants me to be in a musical. To audition for a musical," he said. "_The Fantasticks._ Ever heard of it?"

"Sure. I saw it. In New York," said Annabeth. "Who?"

"Angelina Reed."

Annabeth recognized the name. Angelina Reed was the head of the Westport Players, which was a community theater group that did a couple of shows a year in the theater at the Holymount School. Annabeth could not remember them ever doing a musical before. "They're doing _The Fantasticks?"_ she asked.

"Yeah," said Luke. "She called me. She saw me in _The Philadelphia Story_ and she thought, if I could sing, I might make a good El Gallo."

"She's right," said Annabeth. "If you're not too young for it. How old is she casting the girl?"

"I didn't ask her."

"I guess she must have somebody pretty young in mind."

Luke shrugged. "I downloaded the music from iTunes," he said.

"Then you're going to do it?"

"I don't know," said Luke. "I don't know if I can. Or if they'll want me to, after they hear me sing. I guess it'd be good to get the experience, though. I've only done one play."

"Not counting the Christmas Pageant," said Annabeth.

Luke laughed.

"El Gallo's a juicy part," said Annabeth.

"I know," said Luke. "I bought the book from Amazon."

"He's got some great songs."

Luke cleared his throat. "Want to hear one?" he asked.

"Sure."

"Okay," he said. "You wait here." He pushed his chair back from the table, rose, and walked out of the dining room and back into the den.

Annabeth had a million thoughts.

She was really happy for Luke.

She was happy that other people were starting to see him the way she saw him – not as the allusive class prankster, but as the appealing and really attractive young man, who might easily play the dashing hero of a young girl's dreams.

She was happy for herself, too.

She was proud of the role she'd played in discovering the real Luke underneath the jokester and of the part she'd played in getting him the recognition that was starting to come his way.

But she wasn't really happy about his being in this new play. Not completely.

Because, to be completely honest about it, if Luke was going to be in this new play, he'd have to spend a lot of time rehearsing for it, which meant he'd have a lot less time to spend with her.

She was really unhappy about that.

But she wasn't about to let Luke know that.

Not now or ever.

She wasn't that selfish and she wasn't that stupid.

She would encourage Luke to be all that he could be and hope that whatever else he would be, he would always be hers.

That's what she was thinking when she heard the music come pouring out of the den.

Then, there was Luke. Or rather, there was El Gallo. Because when Luke next appeared, entering through the door to the kitchen, he'd transformed himself into somebody Annabeth had never seen before.

Gazing out at her from under the floppy brim of a black Borsalino hat, Annabeth saw a handsome rogue, an experienced man of the world, who called himself El Gallo.

Reminded that Luke could transform himself, so quickly and so completely, into someone else, someone she barely recognized, Annabeth felt a little thrill of excitement and fear.

_Try to remember the kind of September_

_When life was slow and oh, so mellow…_

As he sang, Annabeth fell under El Gallo's spell. Like the girl in the play – Luisa? – she felt drawn to this handsome young stranger, she was ready to abandon the life she knew and follow him happily wherever he led her.

When the song was over, when El Gallo removed his hat with a sweeping gesture and bent his knee in a graceful bow, Annabeth is so deeply enchanted; it took her a long moment to remember where she was.

Then, as the hatless Luke looked up at her from out of his deep bow, she said "You'll be wonderful."

Luke beamed. "You think they'll take me?" he asked.

"They'd be crazy if they didn't."

"I don't know," said Luke. "I don't know if I could do it. Without you. Directing me."

"You could," said Annabeth. "You don't need me."

Luke grinned. "Oh, yes I do!" he said.

"As a _director,"_ said Annabeth. "When does it go on?"

"December eleventh."

"In three weeks?"

"Three weeks from tonight."

"That's not much time."

"I know."

"That means you'd have a pretty heavy rehearsal schedule."

"Yeah. I know," said Luke. "After school, every day. And all day on the weekends."

"But we'd still have Friday and Saturday nights," said Annabeth. "Wouldn't we?"

"Yeah, I guess so," said Luke. "But that's not much time."

It was practically no time at all, as far as Annabeth was concerned. But she shrugged as if it didn't bother her and she looked Luke up and down and she smiled and said, "I guess you are worth waiting for."

Luke smiled. "Have I told you how much I love you?" he asked.

"Not tonight," she told him.

Sometime, just before dawn, Annabeth awakened to the sound of music. For a moment, she thought she must be dreaming, but no, she was awake and there _was_ music playing and someone singing – Luke!

The first light of day was seeping in through the window as she climbed out of bed. Borrowing one of Luke's shirts, she pulled it on and walked out onto the balcony overlooking Luke's living room.

There in the living room below her, she saw him.

Standing before a wall of mirrors that threw his image back at him, wearing only his boxers and his black Borsalino hat, Luke was singing:

_Deep in December, it's nice to remember,_

_Although you know the snow will follow._

_Deep in December, it's nice to remember, _

_Without a hurt the heart is hollow…_

He didn't see Annabeth, standing on the balcony, above him.

_Deep in December, it's nice to remember_

_The fire of September that made us mellow…_

If he had looked, he might not have seen her.

_Deep in December, our hearts should remember_

_And follow…_

Before he'd finished, she was gone.

_Follow, follow, follow._

* * *

**A/N: Not sure what to write today my dear readers. Just know that the next chapter is going to be quite interesting indeed.**

**I know I say this every time, but thank you so much for continuing to read and support this story. Its been truly amazing.**

**Until the next chapter...**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading - MFP**


	22. Chapter 21  Percy

**Chapter 21 – Percy**

When his alarm clock first goes off at six-thirty in the morning on Thanksgiving Day, Percy thinks it must be Callie calling him. But since his alarm clock sounds nothing like his cell phone, he soon realizes it isn't the call he's been expecting since last night.

Callie had promised him she'd let him know how it went when she told Jack Hamilton that she was sorry, she couldn't help it, but she'd fallen in love with Percy Jackson.

He'd waited until one A.M. for her call, but it never came.

He told himself she'd probably arrived home sometime after midnight and decided it was too late to call. She'd call first thing in the morning.

He told himself she'd decided that she still loved Jack. She was spending the night with him and wouldn't be home until morning.

He'd told himself that was nonsense.

Callie loved him.

There was no way he could doubt it.

Not after Saturday, at her summer house.

Not after the way she cried and told Percy how much she loved him.

There was no way he could doubt it.

But still, she hadn't called.

And he hardly slept.

And ready or not, this morning at eleven o'clock, he's going to be swimming in the biggest meet of his life – the JB Cloherty Memorial Thanksgiving Invitational Swim Meet – and he's going for the 100 meter butterfly record and he is going to be doing all this in front of Michael Bennett, the coach from Stanford University.

_I've got to get some sleep,_ he tells himself.

And he does.

He sleeps until he smells his mother's coffee brewing in the kitchen.

He awakens thinking, _She hasn't called!_

He tries her cell phone and it goes straight to voice mail. Maybe she forgot to charge her phone overnight and the battery died.

"Hello, Mrs. Forbes-Buchanan. This is Percy Jackson."

It's exactly eight o'clock. He's put it off as long as he could. He did something Callie asked him never to do, call her at her parent's house number.

"Excuse me for calling so early," he says, "but I need to talk to Callie."

"She's not at home," says Mrs. Forbes-Buchanan. "I'll tell her you called."

From the way she says it, he can tell she's about to hang up on him.

"Wait!" he says.

"Yes?" she says.

"When do you expect her back?"

"I don't know. She's going to the football game."

"That's not until this afternoon. Is she going to the swim meet?"

"I'm sorry," she says, although she hardly sounds it, "but that's all I know. They left about half an hour ago and I don't expect them back until dinner."

"Them…?"

"Was there anything else?"

He wants to ask her who "they" are. Maybe she means Callie and her father. Or maybe she means Callie and somebody else that he's never even heard of.

But he knows who "they" are, and he's already tried her patience.

"No," he tells her. "Nothing else."

"I'll tell her you called."

"Thank you."

_She didn't tell him!_ he thinks. _Why?_

_The time wasn't right. Jack's first night home. She couldn't just –_

_Or maybe there were too many people around. A thing like that, you've got to find the right –_

_Anyway,_ he tells himself, _she's probably telling him right now. Taking a walk, probably. Maybe along the drive. Down by the river._

_Yeah. That's how she'd do it. Not the first minute she saw him. Not in front of a lot of people. She'd wait until the time and place was right._

_Which is why she didn't call last night. She hadn't told him yet._

_She's telling him now. As soon as she's told him, she'll call and say it's done._

He hopes she'll call before he has to leave for the pool. He's due there at nine o'clock, two hours before the meet starts. Once he is there, he won't have access to his cell phone.

At 8:57am, right as he is about to walk through the door to the pool, he tries her again.

Straight to her voice mail.

He tries her house again.

And gets her mother again.

Without straining to be cordial, she tells him again that "they" have gone out and "they" won't be back until dinnertime.

He tells her that he's sorry to have bothered her – which he isn't – and hangs up.

For one desperate moment, he panics.

For a split second, it is clear to him that he is totally alone in the universe, that he is completely helpless.

For an instant, he wants to scream.

Or wail.

"God!" He says it out loud.

And then, slowly reality begins falling back into place around him.

And he's okay.

Or he will be.

Yes. He's okay.

"Jesus!" He shakes his head to clear it. He fixes his mind on the meet.

* * *

It happens right after the third and final flip turn of the race.

Everyone watching the race knew that Percy was going to break Scott Webber's record – he was swimming that fast and that strong.

Percy just pushed off the wall and is bringing his arms back, out and around when his left arm keeps going "out."

He hears something pop and tear.

He hears himself cry out before he swallows a mouthful of water.

And then everything goes black.

Ammonia.

He smells it and jerks his head away.

He's awake. He wishes he wasn't. He's in agony.

Scarlet-colored lenses have dropped over his eyes. There's a screeching inside his skull.

"Hang on, son." His father takes his right hand.

The screech of the siren, as the ambulance springs into motion, matches and amplifies the screeching inside his skull.

Every bump in the road, every jostle, is like a dagger in his shoulder, like a cleaver, like an ax.

He tries to scream out but realizes that there is a tube down his throat.

And to top it all off, he is soaking wet and only wearing a tiny blue Speedo.

_Jesus!_

"Easy."

In the emergency room at Roosevelt Hospital, they lift him onto the table.

"Dislocation," says the doctor to his father.

"Son?" he says. "Are you with us?

Percy nods.

"We're going to give you something for the pain and then we are going to pop your shoulder back into place."

Percy shakes his head. _Nothing for the pain._

"It's going to hurt like a son of a bitch."

Percy pleads with his eyes. _Do it. Fast. Please._

The doctor nods and turns to Percy's father. "Step outside please," he tells him.

"Are you sure this is the best –"

"Yes," says the doctor. "Please."

"I'll be right outside, Percy."

The doctor takes off his white coat and rolls up his sleeves. "Okay, son." He puts his hands on Percy's arm and –

"How are we doing?"

Percy blinks his eyes. The doctor is standing over him.

Percy is relieved that the tube has been removed from his throat. "What happened?" he asks hoarsely.

"You passed out," the doctor tells him. "This is your room. For a day or two. Until the swelling goes down. You had a dislocated shoulder, a bad one. We popped it back into place, but there's some damage to the cartilage and tendons. Probably extensive damage. The pain was so much that you blacked out in the pool and but not before you swallowed a great deal of water. The paramedics intubated you and we had to pump the water out of your stomach."

"His shoulder can be fixed, right?" says his father. "I mean, he can come back from this, right? He can swim?"

"It's possible," the doctor tells him. "But I can't say for sure one way or the other at this time. We'll know more what's possible and what isn't after surgery. My name is Gideon, by the way, Anthony. Big meet today, huh?"

"Yes."

"That's tough," says Dr. Gideon. "Well, you'll want to get some rest. I'll look in on you in the morning."

"Thanks."

"I'm sorry, son."

"Thank you, Doctor," says Percy's father.

"They do great things with shoulders," says Percy's father. The doctor is hardly out of the room and he's come over to the side of Percy's bed.

"It's okay."

"Sure it is," says his father. "It will be." He takes Percy's right hand. "Your mother and Paul just left. Your mom wants to finish up the Thanksgiving dinner she was cooking so she can smuggle you in some 'decent food.' I bet it will all be dyed blue, too."

Percy had to give a bittersweet smile at that. His mom can always be counted on to try and make him feel better. "Anybody else?"

His father looks at him.

"Did anybody else show up besides mom and Paul?"

"Nico and Charles stopped by on the way to the football game. They want you to call them as soon as you can. I am sure Coach Levine and some of your teammates will stop by after the meet. Should be wrapping up soon. Any maybe Mr. Bennett."

Percy shakes his head. "Swimming is over," he says. "Maybe for good."

"Hey," says his father. "Don't talk like that."

"Where's my stuff? I need my cell phone."

"Your mother brought it with her from the meet. It's in the closet here. And I repeat – don't talk like that! Don't even think like that! We will beat this!"

Percy isn't listening to his father anymore. He is trying to turn his cell phone on with just his right hand.

Battery dead.

"Can you tell mom to bring my cell phone charger?" he asks his father.

Suddenly, it occurs to Percy that a phone might not be the best answer to his problem. The conversation he needs to have with Callie may be too important to have over the phone.

"Could you leave me some money, too?" says Percy. "For magazines."

"Sure," says his father. "But I'm not going anywhere."

But Percy reminds him that it's Thanksgiving and he's made plans to spend it with his current "favorite lady friend."

"There's nothing to do here but watch me sleep," he tells him.

After awhile, his father lets himself be persuaded. Before he goes, he puts a couple of twenty's on the stand next to Percy's bed.

As he does, Percy sees that there are tears in his eyes. Percy has never seen tears in his father's eyes.

"It's okay, Dad."

"Sure it is," says his father. "When the going gets tough…"

"Get going," says Percy.

"Yeah," says his father. He leans over the bed and kisses Percy on the head. Then, without another word, he turns and heads out the door, waving over his shoulder as he goes and never glancing back.

Sometime later, a pretty nurse walks into his room. She smiles and says, "Hello there Sleeping Beauty."

Percy has dozed off.

"What time is it?"

"About six," says the pretty nurse. "Why? Do you have a hot date or something?"

"No," says Percy.

"Good," she says. "Because you are in no shape to go anywhere. Plus, it's a nasty night."

She has a thimbleful of pills for Percy and a glass of water.

As soon as she leaves the room, Percy spits out the pills that he was supposed to have swallowed but only stored in the corner of his mouth.

He looks over at the closet and thinks about the clothes that are in there.

He thinks about money his father left on the stand.

He reaches over and lifts the ice pack from his left shoulder. He inches over to the edge of the bed, slides his feet from under the sheets and plants them on the floor.

Taking a deep breath and then another, he uses his right arm to lift himself off the bed and stands up straight.

He walks over to the closet and sees his swim team warm-ups in there. He slides onto the floor and wiggles his way into his pants. He jams his feet into his sneakers and doesn't even think about trying to tie his laces.

It is when he is trying to get his shirt on with one good arm and his teeth that he falls over onto his side.

His left side.

The pain is so sharp, so exquisite, he nearly passes out.

He grabs onto the bed and pulls himself up. He holds on to it until his vision has cleared and his stomach has settled and his breathing has returned to normal.

And then, letting go of the bed, he quietly makes his way across his room and into the hallway.

* * *

It's sleeting as the taxi pulls up to the handsome brownstone on East End Avenue.

Percy pays the driver and eases himself out the door.

He stands in the cold, wet slush and watches as the taxi pulls away.

He turns and looks up at the house and sees the precipitation making a halo around the light above the front door.

Grabbing onto the railing, he is careful with his footing on the slippery stairs.

He rings the bell.

He hopes Callie will come to the door.

Callie's mother comes to the door.

She isn't happy to see him.

When she opens the door, Percy tells her, "I need to speak with Callie."

"Callie is eating her dinner," says her mother.

"I'll wait," says Percy.

"Suit yourself," says Callie's mother.

She closes the door.

Percy doesn't know if he can wait. The pain in his shoulder is killing him.

He can't wait.

He rings the bell again.

He rings it, again and again.

Callie opens the door.

She isn't happy to see him, either.

On the taxi ride over, Percy was practicing what to say when he saw Callie. None of what he rehearsed is what comes out of his mouth.

"What's that?" he asks her.

She has an odd-looking piece of jewelry, like a tiny medal, pinned to her sweater, above her left breast.

"A fraternity pin," she tells him.

"Jack's?"

"Yes."

"What does it mean?"

Callie mutters something under her breath.

Percy doesn't understand. "What?"

"Good-bye," she says.

"NO!"

"I'm sorry," she says. There are tears in her eyes.

"You're _sorry?_"

"I didn't mean…" She shakes her head and looks away.

"The hell you didn't!"

"Percy?" Jack Hamilton is walking down the hallway, coming to the door. "Is that you?"

"You knew damn well what you were doing!" Percy tells Callie.

"I didn't!" she cries. "I don't!"

"Hey," says Jack, arriving at the door. "What's going on?"

"Congratulations," Percy tells him.

Sobbing, Callie turns and runs into the house.

Jack sets his jaw and glares at Percy. "What have you done to her?"

Percy feels tears starting to come, but he looks at Jack in the eye and smiles and says, "Loved her."

Jack just looks at him, for a second.

Then he says, "Good night."

And he closes the door.

* * *

**A/N: So there you have it, folks! Percy and Callie are no more. Not a very good day for our dear, lovable Percy, huh? It will all get better soon but how soon, only I know.**

**Much love to my loyal readers and reviewers. Any questions, comments, feedback - send them my away.**

**Until next time...**

**Enoy and Happy Reading - MFP**


	23. Chapter 22  Annabeth

**Chapter 22 – Annabeth**

Annabeth closed the book.

_Finally._

She guessed that it was Luke calling when she heard her cell phone ring.

It was Thursday night and she had to get _Catcher in the Rye_ read and write a report on it by next Monday. Which might not seem like a lot – the book was not that long – but the writing was so good and the story was so heartbreaking she could not bring herself to hurry through it.

But when her phone rang, she closed the book, put it aside, grabbed her phone and said, "Buenos tardes, senor."

"Buenos noches, senorita," said Luke, correcting her.

Ten o'clock at night was not the time to be saying good evening.

"A thousand pardons, El Gallo," said Annabeth.

"De nada," said Luke.

"You're too kind," she said.

Luke laughed. Then he said, "Listen…"

Annabeth knew what was coming. She couldn't say how. But she knew Luke was calling to break their date for Saturday night and, what's more, she was already angry about it.

"Yes?" she said.

" 'Round and Round' isn't coming so good," he said.

Luke's big second-act song had been a problem from the day rehearsals began, almost two weeks ago.

"It just lies there," he says. "And Angelina's no help. She thinks it's just dandy. That's what she says, after we ran through it tonight at rehearsal. 'Just dandy, boys and girls! Just dandy!' When everybody knew it was shit."

"Why?" asked Annabeth.

"Why is it shit?"

"Yeah."

"Josie."

"What else is new?" said Annabeth.

Over the last couple of weeks, Luke's leading lady had been the topic of conversation between them. Josephine "Josie" Robertson was a senior at Holymount, the all-girl Catholic school where the Westport Players usually performed. She was, according to Luke, the All-American Girl, the Homecoming Queen, and the Girl Most Likely to Succeed, all rolled into one.

He couldn't stand her.

She was, he said, so pretty, smart, nice and popular that it was appalling. He wouldn't have minded so much, he said, if she could act. But she couldn't. Not at all. In fact, she didn't even try. She was so pretty, smart, nice and popular that she didn't see any sense in getting up on stage in front of people pretending she was someone who was less pretty, smart, nice and popular than she was.

She could _sing._ Luke admitted that. Like a bird. Only, for some reason, when it came time for her to sing 'Round and Round' with him – when El Gallo shows her just how rotten and heartless the world could be – she became all whiny about it and her singing became all violiny and it sank the song.

It just lay there.

"Yeah?" said Annabeth. "So?"

Luke heaved a sigh. "So, we thought –"

"You and Josie?"

"It's our song," Luke reminded her.

"Uh-huh,"

"We thought we should go back to square one," he said. "On our own. And see if we can't figure out a way to get it off the ground."

"On your own?"

"Yeah."

"Without Angelina around to tell you it's 'just dandy'?"

"Right."

"Just the two of you? You and Josie?"

"Yeah."

"Saturday night?"

Sounding amazed at Annabeth's having guessed what he was leading up to, Luke said, "Yeah!"

"Where?"

"At her house."

"Uh-huh."

"It's the only time we have," Luke explained. "Josie has to do something with her family after rehearsal Sunday night. Some church thing."

Annabeth doubted that Luke's problem with "Round and Round" were as major as he imagined. More likely, he was just giving in to preshow jitters. He'd been panicking about one thing or another right from the start. If it wasn't the director's lack of imagination, it was the actors' inadequacies. He said he'd walk out on the show if he could, even at this late date, but it was already such a catastrophe, it was like a car wreck that he couldn't take his eyes off.

At first, Annabeth had tried to assure Luke that things probably weren't as bad as they seemed to him. That only made him insist that things were even worse. After that, she'd given up trying to soothe him. Until this thing blew over, she'd decided, she was just going to go with the flow.

"So you want to break our date?"

"I don't _want_ to," he told her.

"No problem."

"You mean it?"

"You can't let 'Round and Round' just lie there."

"I knew you'd understand."

Annabeth could hear the relief in his voice. "Oh, yeah," she said, gritting her teeth. "You can count on me."

Her irony was lost on him.

"But what am I going to do about the Whiner?" he asked.

"Oil her?"

"What?"

"Joke," she told him.

"Yeah," he said. "Well, this isn't. I don't know if it's her or the song."

_Don't say it,_ Annabeth told herself. "It's her," she said. It just jumped out of her.

"You think so?" asked Luke. Suddenly he sounded defensive.

"I've seen the play," Annabeth told him. "And I've read it, too. Yes, I can see how the girl _could_ get whiny, when El Gallo forces her to take a look at the ugly side of life. She could just as easily be astonished and repelled and angry at the way reality falls short of her dreams. There's nothing in the play that says she has to whimper about it. She could rage."

As if Annabeth had just invented the wheel, Luke said, "That's right! That would put some life in it! Why didn't I think if that? Why didn't Angelina?"

_Why didn't Josie?_ Annabeth thought.

"God," said Luke, "if only you were directing."

"You can't have everything," Annabeth told him.

"No," said Luke. "I guess not. God, I miss you."

"How do you find the time?"

Luke laughed. "It's easy."

"Yeah," she said. "I know what you mean."

"Do you miss me?"

"A little."

"A little?"

Annabeth laughed – although she didn't feel like it. "Okay," she said, "if you want to know the truth, I miss you a lot." She felt a lump in her throat as she said it.

It wasn't like she hadn't been seeing Luke. She'd been seeing him, every day at school.

They even found time to be alone, just last Saturday night – although she didn't want to think about that.

Even so, ever since Luke started rehearsals, she'd felt lost.

"I'm sorry about Saturday night," said Luke.

"This Saturday?" Annabeth asked. "Or last Saturday?"

Luke took a breath. "Both," he said.

Last Saturday night, they'd had their first real fight.

They had gone to a party at Katie's house. Annabeth was excited to see her friends and to spend some time with them. As parties go, Katie's was a pretty tame affair. Especially when compared to the party at Thalia's, which was the last party Annabeth and Luke had gone to.

At Katie's party, people actually talked.

Or at least they would have, if Luke had given anybody a chance to get a word in edgewise. As it was, fresh from rehearsing all afternoon, Luke had not been able to leave his work or his role behind him.

Like El Gallo, from the minute he walked in, he commanded center stage. To anyone who'd listen, he held forth on the problem of being a serious actor, drowning in the shortcomings of a company of amateurs and clowns.

When Connor quipped about Luke being the biggest clown they knew, you could see the rage burning in Luke's eyes.

Annabeth realized it was only Luke's insecurity talking, but she hadn't yet learned how deep his insecurity ran. So, when she tried to get him to pipe down and chill out, he became angry with her.

What did she know? She hadn't been at rehearsals! She hadn't lived through the horror of acting with people who don't know the first thing about acting, or taking directions from a woman who didn't know the first thing about directing!

She wouldn't have to walk out on stage, in just two weeks, knowing – no matter how hard she tried or how well she did – she was bound to be embarrassed in front of a theater filled to the rafters with friends and strangers!

Grover put a protective arm around Annabeth and tried to steer her away from the scene Luke was obviously making.

As much as Grover's kindness warmed her heart, it was nothing compared to how Luke's insensitivity burned her soul.

Annabeth admitted she wasn't playing El Gallo in the Westport Players' production of _The Fantasticks_, so she couldn't really know exactly what Luke was going through.

But, she said, over the course of the evening, Luke had done a pretty good job of communicating his experience to everybody – herself, included, whether they were interested in hearing it or not.

She also said she was ready to leave, whenever Luke was.

Katie and Grover tried to talk her into staying, but at that point, Annabeth had enough. She was tired, upset and just wanted to go home and curl up with a good book.

It was still pretty early, not much past ten o'clock and despite Annabeth's obvious unhappiness with his behavior, Luke was still so full of himself he took Annabeth's request to leave as an invitation to get down to the real business of the evening – hooking up.

Ten minutes later, they were in Luke's car and heading for Luke's house. He said his parents were out for the evening and probably wouldn't be back until long after midnight.

Annabeth said that she did not want to go to Luke's house. She wanted to go home.

Luke didn't understand. "It's been a week!"

"I know," said Annabeth. "It's been a week for me, too. But where does it say we have to hook up every week, whether we feel like it or not?"

"Is something wrong?" asked Luke.

"No," said Annabeth.

"You just don't feel like it?"

"That's right."

"What if _I_ feel like it?"

Annabeth shrugged.

"Look," said Luke. "I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm feeling kind of rocky right now, you know? Kind of trapped? With nowhere to go but down? You know?"

"I know."

"So, I kind of hoped you'd see that," he said. "I thought if anybody would understand what I'm going through, it would be you. I thought, 'Well, maybe everything else is falling apart, but at least I can count on Annabeth.' Anyway, that's what I thought."

In the end, Annabeth let Luke persuade her. But there hadn't been much love or sweetness in what they were doing that night and although Luke was once again his old, sweet self, Annabeth felt for the first time like she had let herself be used.

That night, when she arrived home, before she went to sleep, she promised herself – although she loved Luke and wanted to be there for him when he needed her – it would never happen like that again.

But now, she told him, "I forgive you."

"For last week?" he asked. "Or this week?"

"Both," she said – although she knew the most honest answer would have been "Neither."

"What about Saturday?"

"Go ahead."

"Are you sure?" asked Luke. "Because if you really don't want me to, I can tell Josie –"

"Tell her nobody likes a whiner," said Annabeth. "And, yes, I'm sure. If I have to give you up so you can be in a play, you might as well be good in it."

"That's what I was thinking," said Luke.

"After all," said Annabeth, "one of these days I'm going to have to sit through it. If _that_ date is still on."

"Hey!" said Luke. "Give me a break."

"Reading," said Annabeth.

"Huh?"

"If you were wondering what I was up to when you called."

Luke laughed. "God, I _am _being an ass about this, aren't I?"

Annabeth answered with a weary sigh.

"Do you still love me?" Luke asked her.

"Yes," said Annabeth. "Do you still love me?"

"Madly," said Luke. "If I promise to mend my ways, can I pick you up in the morning?"

"Sure."

"I promise," said Luke. "Good night."

"Good night."

They exchanged kisses and hung up their phones.

For a moment, Annabeth just sat there at her desk, fiddling with her antique necklace and staring off into space.

She had no reason to be suspicious, she told herself.

Luke loved her.

He was aching for her last Saturday night.

Last Saturday night, he couldn't live without her.

No, she told herself. There was nothing to worry about.

Luke loved her.

If there was anything she was sure of, she told herself, it was that.

* * *

**A/N: Trouble is brewing for this couple. And that means only one thing - time to meet Percy. It is comign very soon, I promise!**

**I would not be able to do this without the continue support of my awesome and loyal readers. Thank you so very much for the reviews, feedback and questions. I hope I am up to date on all of them and if I am not, I will be doing that this week. Thank you for your patience!**

**Next Percy chapter is in the works. It's a little long so I may not have it up until the weekend.**

**Until then...**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading! - MFP**


	24. Chapter 23  Percy

**Chapter 23 - Percy**

"_Blinded._

_Blinded by the light."_

_Springsteen must have been thinking about me, walking out of a dark theater in the middle of a bright December afternoon, when he wrote that. _

Percy shifts his left arm in his sling and wipes the tears from his eyes with his right.

_It's the bright sunlight,_ he tells himself, _the bright sunlight, bouncing off the dark gray snow. If anybody asks me why I'm crying, that's what I'll tell them._

"It's the sunlight, sir." He says it out loud and looks around to see if anyone's noticed.

No one's noticed.

There are still a couple of people straggling out of the theater, but they are case-hardened New Yorkers, so they take no special notice of a young guy standing on the sidewalk crying his eyes out and talking to himself.

Anyway, it isn't the sunlight that started him crying. It was the damned movie.

He can't believe it!

He can't believe he went to see _Love Actually_ again, when he'd seen it every Christmas Eve with his mom for the past six years and knew perfectly well what it was all about.

Love.

All different types of love.

Between father and sons.

Brothers and sisters.

Strangers.

Best friends.

And the one that gets Percy the most – the love that Mark has for his best friend, Peter's, wife Juliet. And when Juliet finds out, she stays with Peter.

_Remind you of anything, dumb ass?_

It was exactly what he didn't need.

He'd gone to the movies to forget about Callie and not to be reminded how she'd chosen Jack over him. It was not like he needed reminding. Going to the movies seemed to be the only way he could forget about Callie.

And avoid her.

He had not been back to school yet. Not since he had his shoulder wrecked. As far as he could tell, he had not been missed.

His mother called the school to tell them he was having surgery, so he guessed they probably thought he was still recovering from it.

The truth was, he could have gone back to school last week, right after the surgery. The pain was not too bad and since the injury was to his non-writing hand, he could still write.

In fact, he started every school day since the surgery by packing up his books and saying so long to his mom and lumbering out the door, as if he were going to school. Every night, he lumbered back home and reported to his mom on how his day at school had been.

But he never actually went to school.

He was afraid he would bump into Callie.

He _knew_ he would bump into Callie.

He was afraid, when he did, he might scream at her and grab her and shake her and shove her against a wall and –

Why did she do it?

Why did she pretend that she was in love with him?

Was he just something to do while Jack was off at school? A fun way of passing the time? A way of not being lonely?

Was she just out to prove to herself once and for all, before she settled on Jack, that she could have any man she wanted? Was he just another trophy on her shelf, another notch on her headboard?

It didn't matter. He'd never mattered to her. She used him.

So when he bumped into her, he might scream at her and –

Or else he might fall on his knees and beg her to take him back.

He might do that, too. He loved her that much.

And maybe she was not pretending. Maybe she did actually love him. But maybe she thought Jack had more to offer her. More than love.

Maybe she just needed Percy to tell her that he could offer her more than love, too. More than Jack could offer her.

So when he bumped into her, he might fall on his knees and –

It would be one way or the other. He could not imagine it going any other way. Until he could, he was not going back to school.

He was going to the movies. He had been catching two a day most days for the last week and a half.

When he was not watching movies, he was at the hospital's rehabilitation center, working on his shoulder.

Percy checks his watch. It is almost four. He could shoot over to the rehab center now. However, at the moment, he does not really feel like experiencing again the pain he felt when his shoulder first popped out of joint – which is what it feels like every time he goes to the center and rotates and lifts with his arm.

Although he is anxious to be rid of the sling, he reminds himself that swimming season is over and that it won't matter if he misses a day of therapy.

With his mind made up, he sets out for the nearest subway station.

Percy wonders how his father is doing in his search for a doctor with an optimistic outlook. Dr. Caldwell, the orthopedic surgeon who performed his operation, had not been optimistic.

With a lot of hard work and dedication, Percy would be able to get his shoulder back into good enough shape for leading what he called an "active life." Dr. Caldwell was afraid, no matter how hard Percy worked on rehabbing his shoulder; it would never be as stable as it was before the injury. Which meant that Percy would be susceptible to another dislocation.

If Percy suffered another dislocation like the first one, Dr Caldwell said, there was a risk he might be lame for the rest of his life.

Percy was stunned.

He had thought about giving up competitive swimming anyway. So, he supposed, the doctor's diagnosis should not have bothered him that much. But being told that he might not have a choice, that he might not be fit to race, even if he wanted to, was something else.

Percy did not know what to think.

His father knew what to think.

His father thought Dr. Caldwell was an alarmist and he told him so and then he set out on his search for a doctor with a more optimistic outlook.

He is still searching.

Meanwhile, when Percy is not watching movies, he is working out.

And he is doing all right.

He has become accustomed to using just his right hand and arm. The hardest part had been not ramming his slinged left arm into anything. For all the grace Percy had in the water, on land, he was a hopeless klutz.

There are some benefits of being disabled. People make a lot of room for a guy in a sling on the bus and the train. And from time to time, let him cut in line at the coffee shop.

Percy rides up the escalator that takes him from the subway to the main floor of Port Authority Bus Terminal. He has not come to the bus terminal to take a bus. He is not going anywhere. Although he has thought about it. It would be so easy. He has about five hundred dollars in his savings account. He could take it out, come down here and buy a ticket to anywhere in the country – Boston, New Orleans, San Francisco, Key West.

He is only seventeen. He has his whole life ahead of him. He could chuck everything and everybody and start all over again somewhere else. All he would have to do is hop on a bus, and by the day after tomorrow he could be anywhere at all.

And who would miss him?

Coach Levine?

Percy laughs at himself for thinking of him first, if even at all. After failing to break Scott Weber's record Coach Levine has started to turn his attention to Greg Lazar, an eighth grade swimming phenom who is quickly making a name for himself in the inner-city swim circles.

His father?

His father would miss him. In fact, he was missing him already. He just did not know it yet. He was still counting on Percy coming back from his injury. He was still looking forward to his swimming at a big-time college. He was still dreaming about all the scholarships, the championships and medals that he had set his heart on back when Percy was still a kid.

So yes, if Percy took off and left his dreams to wither on the vine, his father would miss him.

Callie?

Would she miss him?

Did she miss him now?

_Why did she do it?_ The question echoes in his mind as he moves though the crowded bus terminal and makes his way to his rented locker. Fishing the key out of his pocket, he opens his locker and hauls out his schoolbooks. He selects a few and puts the others back. Then, depositing more money into the slot, he retrieves the key from the lock, turns and heads back down to the subway.

His mom?

Would she miss him?

Did he even have to ask?

Even though her life was changing for the better with her upcoming nuptials to Paul, she would always put Percy first in her heart.

He is thinking about this as he opens the door to their apartment.

"Percy?"

That's his mom, calling from the kitchen.

"Hi, Mom," he calls back.

"Your father called," says his mother. She's standing in the doorway of the kitchen, sipping coffee and nibbling a blue chocolate chip cookie. "He wants to see you before he goes off on his vacation."

"Okay, thanks."

"Percy. Have a seat. We need to talk."

_Uh-oh. Nothing good every follows that line._

Percy takes a seat on the couch in the living room and his mother sits right next to him. She takes his right hand into both of hers.

"How was your day?" asks his mom. "What did you do?"

Percy feels like a shit for lying to him mom, but the next thing he knows he is telling his mom all about the classes he had, the homework assigned and the jokes that were made during lunch. He ends his tale with a descriptive retelling of his rehab session at the hospital.

"Perseus. I thought I taught you never to lie to me."

The way that she says it - just like that - no sugar-coating or anger, makes Percy feel, if possible, even worse.

"I know you have not been to school these past few days. Don't ask me how I know. Let's just say that you have some friends who are very concerned about you. And I am concerned, too. You have not been yourself lately. As first I just thought it was the injury and surgery, but the more I think about it, it was happening before that. What is going on, Percy?"

"I don't know what you are—"

"Oh , I think I do know what I am talking about. You stopped talking to and hanging out with Nico and Charles. For goodness sake, you haven't even played your normal Monday night video games with them in weeks."

"Well, Mom," says Percy. "It is kind of hard to play video games now with one hand."

"This has been going on before the injury. Secret phone calls. Late nights outs and I assume you were not alone. But it is not just that. You _look_ different. That special mischievous glint in your eyes, it's gone. Your crooked smile that lights up a room? Gone! Why? What happened to make my son so sad?"

Percy just sits there in silence. He is afraid if he opens his mouth, he may cry or scream.

"Look, Percy," continues his mom. "I know I have not been around much lately, with school and planning the wedding with Paul. I feel like I let you down. That I have not been there for you like I needed to be. Like I should be"

Still Percy says nothing.

"I know you have this special bond with your father in regard to your swimming. I took a back seat these past few years because I felt like your father had more experience with it. I let him take charge in regard to your training and college recruitment. But I am not taking a back seat any more. I know what Dr. Caldwell told you. If he thinks it is too risky for you to swim competitively, then it is too risky for me, too."

Percy opens and closes his mouth but not a word comes out.

"I know you feel like the only way you can go to college is through swimming, but that is not true. Paul and I talked about this at great length. We have some money saved up to buy a house, but we rather use the money for you to go to college. On your terms. We want you to go to where _you_ want to go and _do _what you want to do. Now it is not enough for a fancy out-of-state college but I don't want you to feel like you don't have options."

Percy does not know that if he can be any more shocked.

"I love you, Percy," says his mom, choking up. "And so does Paul. And you have friends who care about you, miss you and want to help you. Let us, Percy. Let us be there for you."

He tries for the tenth time to open his mouth to speak and all that comes out is "Mom."

And then the tears start.

For both Percy and his mom.

* * *

After a dinner of blue chocolate chip pancakes, Percy set about a task his mom ordered him to do – call back his friends.

Percy has been trying so hard to avoid calls from Nico, Beckendorf and Rachel that he stopped carrying his cell phone with him. Of course, that did not stop the Dynamic Trio from banding together and calling his mom. He guesses he should be angry that his friends went behind his back and ratted him out, but as his mom said "you would have done the same thing if it was one of them. Now call them!"

He starts first with Rachel.

Rachel picks up the phone on the first ring. She sounds surprised that Percy called her back.

"Well, it's not like I had a choice after the stunt you three pulled" says Percy.

"Oh come off is, Perce," says Rachel. "What do you think we would do? You have been acting all strange for weeks and then all of a sudden you drop off the face of the earth. You don't live in a bubble where it's just all about you and your sufferings. Other people have issues, too."

First the umpteenth time that night, Percy feels ashamed.

Rachel is right.

Percy had been so consumed – obsessed, actually – with Callie that he forgot about pretty much everyone else.

"I'm sorry, Red. I have been off in my own world lately, huh?"

"It's okay, Percy. So, how is the shoulder?" she asks.

"Coming along," he tells her. "I don't think I can swim anymore."

"No!"

"Well, actually," he says. "I might be able to swim, but not competitively."

"God!" says Rachel. "That's pretty terrible, isn't it?"

"No," says Percy. "I mean, I'll be alright. My shoulder will be. But, yes, I guess it is. Terrible, I mean. To not be able to compete."

"What are you going to do?"

"When?"

"Come fall," she says. "Where will you go?"

"Oh," says Percy. "I don't know. I don't know where I'll be going in the fall. Or what I'll be doing. Or who I am. Or what I want to be when I grow up."

Percy tells Rachel about the conversation he had with his mom about college. He feels relieved to think that he has other option besides a local community college. But part of him feels a little overwhelmed at the same time. What _can _he do now that he can't swim?

Rachel takes a moment – letting it all sink in, Percy guesses – and then she says, "Well…I'm sorry about your not swimming anymore."

"Thanks," says Percy.

"You look so cute in your little blue Speedo."

Percy laughs.

"But," she says, "if you're really as screwed up and lost as you say you are…"

"I am," Percy reassures her.

"Well, it's about time!" says Rachel, sounding like she's genuinely delighted to hear it. "Everybody else I know has been screwed up forever. Welcome to the club!"

Percy laughs. "Thanks," he says.

"You're much better off having your nervous breakdown when you're young," she says, "and getting it behind you."

Percy laughs again. "Who said anything about a nervous breakdown?" he asks her.

"My shrink," she says. "I've started seeing one. In fact, he's the only guy I am seeing right now. His orders."

"I can I _see_ other guys," she says, "but I can't go to bed with them. So they are not seeing me. Like your teammate Neil Kimbell. It turns out he didn't love me for my personality. It turns out nobody did."

"I guess I have a lousy personality," Rachel says. "But a great body, right?"

"I never had any compliant with either," Percy tells her. "So how long have you been seeing a shrink?"

"Since a couple of weeks ago," she tells him. "My parents came home one night when they weren't supposed to and caught me with a married friend of theirs."

"Ouch!" says Percy.

"He was so unhappy," says Rachel.

"Um," says Percy.

"I have low self-esteem, Percy."

"I'm sorry."

"And the fact that hardly anybody is calling me since I stopped acting like the town bicycle isn't raising it either. Well, I take that back. Nico and Beckendorf have been really sweet. But, they are and have always ever been, just friends, you know?"

"Yeah," says Percy.

"Like, ask me what I'm doing for New Year's Eve," she says.

"What are you doing New Year's Eve, Rachel?"

"I thought you'd never ask!" she gushes. "I'd _love_ to."

"What?"

"Anything," she says. "But."

Percy laughs and tells Rachel, "It's a date."

"You mean it?" she asks.

"You can't kick a girl when her esteem is down," says Percy.

"You don't have any other plans?" she asks.

"New Year's is weeks from now," he says. "I don't know what I'm doing five minutes from now. I don't even know what I am doing now."

"You're being very sweet," she tells him. "Thanks. So will I see you in school tomorrow?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'll be there. Even if my mom has to drag me there herself."

"Well, it will be good to see you," Rachel tells him.

"Same here, Red," says Percy. "Good night."

"Good night."

As Percy hangs up, he says out loud, "One down, two to go."

Instead of flipping a coin to figure out who to call first, another idea pops into his head.

Percy turns on his xBox360. It is a little awkward not being able to move his left fingers too much, but it is manageable. He logs in to the online version of _Call of Duty_ and sure enough, DEADBOYRULZ and HAMMERTIME are logged in as well.

In the middle of the game, all action stops and Nico's voice can be heard over Percy's headset. "Well, well, well. Look who decides to drop in and say hello. What have we done to be granted such an honor?"

"Settle down, Nico." says Beckendorf. "It's good to see you here Percy. You want to join?"

"You sure you don't mind?" he asks. Percy knows it will be cool with Beckendorf, but Nico is another story. He can hold a grudge longer than anyone Percy has ever known.

After a few seconds silence, Nico says, "I guess we would use your crappy sniper skills."

"Crappy? Even with my less than fully functional left hand, I can still outshoot you, Dead Boy."

Everyone laughs. Especially Nico. "Bring it, Gimpy!"

"Oh it will be broughten!" Percy says in his best Valley Girl impersonation.

Everyone laughs harder.

"It's good to have you back, Percy," says Beckendorf.

"Ditto," says Nico.

"Thanks, guys." And smiling for the first time in weeks he says, "It's good to be back."

* * *

**A/N: Thank you for the patience as I worked on this chapter. Percy may be down, but with a little help from his mom and friends, he is slowly making his way back. **

**I know you are all anxiously waiting for Percabeth. I know I have even upset some of you and that you think I am dragging this out too much. I apologize, but this is how I see it playing out. It will happen very, very soon. I promise you!**

**Oh, and I do not own the movie _Love Actually _(although it is one of my top 5 favorite movies) or the song "Blinded By the Light" by Bruce Springteen.**

**Thank you for the reviews and feedback. I will try to answer them all this weekend. I am in the middle of exams so time is tight. But many heartfelt thanks for your help and loyalty.**

**Have a wonderful holiday weekend, whatever your faith and beliefs.**

**Until next time...**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading - MFP**


	25. Chapter 24  Annabeth

**Chapter 24 – Annabeth**

_He loves her!_

Annabeth wanted to howl it.

_He loves her!_

She hurried across the Holymount campus, heading for the Logan Quinnis Theater and the opening night of _The Fantasticks._

There was not much doubt in her mind.

Luke had fallen in love with Josie Robertson, just the way he had fallen in love with Charlotte Davison.

_Okay, _she told herself, _so maybe it isn't love._

At least it was not the kind of love she felt for Luke. Real love. Maybe it was just infatuation.

_He's infatuated with her!_

No, it was more than that.

It wasn't just that he'd been ignoring her all this time. She knew he was busy with rehearsals and panicked about the way they were going.

She did not mind that she had not seen him last night or today. She understood how he did not want to be distracted when he was getting ready for a performance. He wanted to concentrate all his energy on getting up for it. Like a fighter getting ready for a fight or a runner getting ready for a race. She understood that.

She did not mind his breaking their date, last Saturday night, so he could rehearse with Josie, either. At least, not as much as she minded his not calling her, like he always did, Sunday, during his lunch break, and telling her how it had gone.

At first, when he didn't call, she had told herself he was probably rehearsing straight through lunch.

But she didn't buy it.

She knew Luke had not called because he was feeling guilty about what happened between him and Josie the night before. He was afraid, if he called, she'd hear the guilt in his voice. But that wasn't what she heard in his voice when he finally _did_ call, late Sunday night.

He said he had rehearsed straight through lunch. Otherwise, he said, he would have called her.

He said he and Josie had rehearsed "Round and Round" from eight o'clock until almost midnight, when Josie's mother, who had been home the whole time, said they were driving her crazy.

Luke said he had given Josie her suggestion – that she should try to get angry about how cruel the world was, instead of just whining about it, like she had been doing. He said Josie had tried it and it made all the difference. Done Annabeth's way, "Round and Round" was a knockout and Josie was fantastic.

Luke thanked Annabeth.

For himself and Josie.

He said, "I love you, Annabeth."

She said, "I love you, too."

And he said "Good night, beautiful."

He did not sound guilty.

But he _did_ sound something just short of it.

There was something in his voice that made Annabeth think he might be telling her the truth, as far as he went, but he wasn't quite looking her straight in the eye.

It was nothing she could put her finger on. But once she heard it, she started listening for it whenever they talked and it was always there.

_He's in love with her!_

She wanted to howl it.

_Cut it out!_ she told herself, as she entered the lobby of the Logan Quinnis Theater and joined the crowd filing into the auditorium.

_You're just making it up,_ she told herself as she took her seat in the auditorium and exchanged smiles with the woman sitting next to her.

_Luke's in love with you and nobody else. Didn't he tell you, just last night?_

It was the last time they had spoken.

Luke told her he was scared.

Annabeth said she could understand how he would be. But she also reminded him how much he loves pushing through the fear and walking out on a stage and performing in front of an audience.

"Yeah," he said. "I do kind of like that, don't I?"

"You love it," she told him.

"And you," he said.

"You sure?" she asked him.

"Cross my heart and hope to die," he said.

And she wanted to believe him.

More than anything.

If only she could.

As the houselights dimmed, she closed her eyes and made a wish. _Let him be wonderful,_ she wished. _And not in love with Josie._

Annabeth opened her eyes to the sound of music – a piano and a harp, playing the actors onto the stage.

_He cut his hair!_ That was the first thing she thought when she saw Luke strut out onto the stage, dressed all in black and playing the dashing El Gallo. Although all he had actually done was trim away the curls that slashed down over his forehead and even out the rest of his hair so that it looked short and neat all the way around, Annabeth barely recognized him.

The instant he hit the stage, he was the Dark Stranger that every girl dreams of, the Romantic Adventurer who will one day come for her and carry her away.

He was El Gallo!

And Josie was Luisa.

_God, is she ever!_ thought Annabeth.

If Luisa was supposed to be the picture of girlish innocence, captured at the moment before it exploded into ripe and womanly sensuality – which she was – then Josie was Luisa to a T.

With her dark brown hair cascading down her creamy white shoulders, her deep chocolate brown eyes, her prominent cheekbones, her full and luscious mouth, her perfect breast, her narrow waist, and impossibly long legs, Josie was breathtakingly beautiful.

The moment she saw her, Annabeth knew she was sunk.

When Josie joined Luke in singing the opening song, when she added her angel-sweet voice to Luke's smoky baritone, Annabeth knew she hit rock bottom. When the song ended and the play began and Josie began flirting with her innocent young beau, Annabeth _knew_ she had hit bottom and fallen right through.

There was no room for doubt. Josie was the girl every girl dreamed of being and every boy dreamed of having. She was simply irresistible.

Annabeth hated her!

But she could not take her eyes off her.

She could not even make herself pay attention to Luke.

She did not see the other actors on the stage.

She could not even follow the progress of the play.

She watched the whole first act, hypnotized, as if she were in a dream, and only when the act was over – when the houselights came up and the audience broke into applause – did she finally awaken.

Like a bat emerging from a pitch-black cave and flying into bright sunlight, Annabeth rose from her seat and began groping her way up the aisle to the lobby.

Even though she was awake, she was still in a daze. She could not think of anything except how impossibly beautiful Josie was.

Compared to Josie, Charlotte Davison was plain-looking!

Compared to Josie, Annabeth was –

Screwed!

As the lights flickered to signal the end of the intermission, Annabeth hurried back to her seat and waited for the second act to begin.

It was in the second act that the roguish El Gallo stole Luisa away from her innocent beau and took her off to see the world.

It was when El Gallo and Luisa sang "Round and Round."

But most importantly to Annabeth, it was in the second act that El Gallo fell a little bit in love with Luisa and kissed her – on the eyes.

That was the moment Annabeth was waiting for and dreading. She knew, right after they finished singing "Round and Round," Josie would close her eyes and lift her face to Luke and Luke would lean down and kiss her on the eyes.

In that moment, Annabeth believed she would be able to see through Luke's acting to his real emotions and know, beyond a doubt, if Luke was really in love with Josie.

So, as Act Two began, Annabeth crossed her fingers and waited for the moment of truth to arrive.

She did not have to wait long.

Before she knew it, Luke and Josie were cavorting about the stage, singing "Round and Round."

Then the audience was applauding.

Then El Gallo turned to Luisa and said, "Now hurry. You must pack so we may run away."

And Luisa answered, "Kiss me first."

"All right," said El Gallo.

Annabeth held her breath.

Luke reached out to Josie and placed his fingertips ever so lightly on Josie's cheeks.

Josie closed her eyes and lifted her face to him.

Luke leaned down to Josie and, ever so tenderly, kissed her eyes – first one eye and then the other.

But he didn't stop there!

He kissed her _mouth!_ Even though _he wasn't supposed to!_

That wasn't how it was written in the play!

El Gallo wasn't supposed to _kiss _Luisa! Not her _mouth!_ Just her _eyes!_

"At last!" said Josie. "I have been kissed upon the eyes."

_God!_

"No matter what happens," says Josie, "I'll never never ever forget that kiss. I'll go now."

_After me!_ thought Annabeth.

She felt tears stinging her eyes and streaming down her cheeks – tasted her tears at the corner of her mouth.

"Excuse me," she whispered to the woman seated next to her.

"Excuse me," she mouthed the words to the man seated at the aisle.

As she hurried up the aisle and pushed through the door at the back of the auditorium, Annabeth felt a sob clawing at her throat, struggling to get out. She gasped once, fighting to hold it back, as she hurried across the lobby and down the stairs to the girls' room. As she bolted through the door of the girls' rooms, she could not hold it back any longer.

"Ohh," she sobbed. "Luke! You bastard!" Distorted and amplified, the sound of her sobbing echoed back at her from the room's white and green tiled walls.

"How could you?" she screamed.

She walked over to the sink, looked at herself in the mirror.

"How could you?" she screamed again.

She bowed her head over the sink and sobbed.

It hurt her so!

_Luke _hurt her so!

"Bastard!" She said it again.

And sobbed.

She took a huge gulp of air and turned on the cold water and looked in the mirror.

Her eyes were a sight. Her grey eyes were bloodshot and puffy with an endless pools of tears swimming in them.

If he saw her this way –

What?

What difference would it make, now?

"Plenty!"

Annabeth cupped her hands under the faucet, collected a handful of ice-cold water, and splashed in on her face.

She would not let him see her this way.

She would not give him the satisfaction.

From far away, above her in the auditorium, she heard Luke singing the show's final song:

_Deep in December, it's nice to remember,_

_Although you know the snow will follow._

_Deep in December, it's nice to remember:_

_Without a hurt the heart is hollow._

_Deep in December, it's nice to remember,_

_The fire of September that made us mellow._

_Deep in December, our hearts should remember_

_And follow._

_Follow, follow, follow._

As the auditorium above her erupted in applause, Annabeth dried her face.

She had promised Luke she would come backstage after the show and go with him, after he'd cleaned up and changed, to the cast party at the Westport Country Club.

She took a deep breath and set off to keep the first part of her bargain.

She was not the first to arrive backstage. There was already quite a crowd. At the center of it stood Luke and Josie.

They were smiling and holding hands as they accepted congratulations from a line of well-wishers filing by.

_The happy couple!_ thought Annabeth. To her, Luke and Josie looked exactly like a bride and groom standing in a receiving line at a wedding.

She did not join the line. Instead, she stood off to one side, watching Luke and Josie share in their triumph, exchanging smiles, jokes and laughter with their well-wishers and each other. Luke was so busy accepting his fans' congratulations, he did not notice Annabeth watching him.

She waited until the crowd around him began to thin out. Then she steeled her nerves and made her move.

"Annabeth!" Luke took her hand, drew her into him and kissed her, coolly, on the cheek. Then, turning to Josie, he said, "Josie, this it –"

"I heard!" said Josie.

She was even more beautiful offstage than on – even more beautiful close up than far away.

"Our favorite director!" she said, taking Annabeth's hand.

_Our?_ thought Annabeth

"Thank you for saving my life," said Josie, embracing Annabeth. "And Lukie's," she said.

_Lukie's?_

"If it wasn't for you," said Josie, "I would have brought him down to my level."

Luke grinned and blushed.

"Well, almost," Josie said, laughing. She squeezed Luke's hand and drew him closer to her.

"So, what did you think?" she asked Annabeth. "You can't imagine how much your opinion means to me. After all Lukie has told me about you."

"I think you're terrific," said Annabeth. "I think you _were_ terrific. In the show, I mean. Both of you. Terrific!"

"Me, too." A young priest was standing at Annabeth's left side. "Excuse me," he told Annabeth, "but I just had to tell these two people how much I enjoyed their performances."

"Sure," she told him. "I was just leaving anyway."

"Meet you in the lobby?" she asked Luke.

"Yeah," he said. "Sure. You really liked it?"

"Loved it," she said. Luke beamed as she turned and walked away.

_Bastard!_

It took about half an hour for him to clean up and change. Annabeth passed the time alone in the lobby, examining the posters for the Westport Players' previous productions and wondering what she'd do with herself, now that her life was over.

She did not cry. She was past tears. She was past all emotions.

She was like a wounded jet pilot, flying a damaged plane through a storm. Knowing she might crash any second, she was somehow, by God's mercy, miles above it all.

After what seemed like an eternity, Luke appeared. All dressed up and ready for the cast party, he was smiling his classic Luke smile and acting like – except for his haircut – he was the same old Luke.

"Hi, pretty girl," he said, as he crossed the lobby to Annabeth.

"Hi, Lukie."

He laughed. "She does that to bug me," he explained.

"Sweet," said Annabeth.

Luke put his arms around her and kissed her.

Annabeth told herself she felt nothing. When the kiss was over, she turned her face from him and blinked away her tears.

Luke didn't notice. He took her hand and led her to his car. He did all the talking.

The show had come off a lot better than he'd ever expected. For one thing, he'd never expected Josie to be as incredibly good as she was. She was ten times better than she'd ever been in rehearsals.

Fabulous.

Which, of course, did a lot for Luke's performance. He'd been better then he'd ever been, too. And so, he guessed, had everybody else.

They were in the car by now – on the road, heading for the Westport Country Club and the cast party.

"Did you hear that audience?" he asked.

"Are you in love with her?"

Luke kept his eyes on the road.

"Who?"

Annabeth said nothing.

"Josie, you mean?" He glanced over at Annabeth. "I don't know."

"You don't _know?"_ She felt tears again, burning, hot and angry, in her eyes.

"I don't," he said. "I know I love you. I know that. You know that, too, don't you? I do, Annabeth. I love you. I swear."

She turned her eyes from him. She looked out her window at the houses and trees passing by.

"How long?" she asked.

"How long, what?"

"How long have you known? Did you know the night of Katie's party?"

"I don't know _now!"_ he insisted.

She said nothing.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Have you -?" she stopped herself. She didn't want to know.

"No," he said. "Of course not!"

"_Of course not?"_ she asked him.

"She is not that kind of girl."

Annabeth just looked at him.

When he turned to her – when his eyes met hers – she said, "Take me home."

* * *

**A/N: So there you have it! Poor Annabeth, but we all know she is better off without Luke. Now that only means one thing - Percabeth is on the way.**

**Thank you for the amazing reviews and support, especially lately. You truly keep me going.**

**Until next time...**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading! - MFP**


	26. Chapter 25  Percy

**Chapter 25 – Percy**

"I like traveling, all right," says Percy's father, "I just don't like being away from home."

"Well," says Percy, "it's only for two weeks, right?"

"Ten days," says his father, "I'd have settled for a week, myself. But Amy says she can't really relax the first couple of days of a vacation so a week is just too short."

"So you're taking ten days," says Percy.

"Have some guacamole," says his father. "I bought it myself."

"Thanks," says Percy.

They are sitting in the living room of his father's bachelor pad, just the two of them, hanging out before dinner, talking vacations and guacamole.

Percy's father is going on one and serving the other.

Percy does not have much to say about either, but he rather talk about them than lots of other things.

Like his father's Triton swim trainer, for example. The handsome, American-made and swimmer approved trainer that replicates all aspects of freestyle swimming – kicking and all. His father's latest toy sits in the corner of the living room, looking like a piece of ultramodern sculpture.

Percy's father was one of the first people to buy one and Percy has admired it. But right now, Percy is pretending it is not there. He does not want to get into a conversation about exercising. He is afraid of where is might lead.

So far, he has not said anything to his father about not swimming competitively anymore, although – by now – there's no doubt in his mind that those days are behind him.

He has been trying to think of a way to break it to his father that wouldn't give him heart failure.

So far, he has not been able to come up with one.

So whenever his father has gone on about how great things are going to be when Percy gets back to his old self and starts churning out the mileage, Percy hasn't stopped him. He has warned him to not get his hopes too high, but he hasn't stopped him.

"Hungry?" asks his father.

"Always," says Percy.

"Good," says his father. "Because I got you a steak as thick as my fist. Dinner of champions!"

Percy laughs. "Great," he says.

"You like it, don't you?"

"Steak?" asks Percy.

"My swim trainer."

"Oh." His father caught him staring at the damned thing. "Yeah," he says. "It's great."

"It's yours."

"No. I can't take it. But thank you."

"I want you to have it," says his father. "For your shoulder. You can work out on it. Right at home. Anytime you want."

"Right," says Percy. "Twenty-four hours a day, if I want."

"Well," his father says with a smile. "You have to sleep."

"And eat," says Percy.

"You have a lot of work to do, if you want to swim in the summer league. Hell, you may be able to make it back for part of the spring league if you work hard enough."

"Definitely," says Percy.

"Anyway," says his father, "I have inside information that Santa Claus is bringing me the newest version that I saw in _USA Swimming_ magazine last month. The computer has different programs like swimming the English Channel or around Key West."

"Dad," says Percy.

"Nope," says his father. "I don't want to hear any more about it. It's yours."

"Don't you think it's about time you stopped believing in Santa Claus?"

His father eyes him warily. "What do you mean?"

_What the hell¸ _Percy tells himself. _Might as well, now that you've started it –_

"I mean swimming, Dad."

"What about it?"

_He isn't going to make this easy._

"Dad, we went to four different doctors."

"Yeah?"

"They all said the same thing."

"They did not."

"They all said it would be risky for me to swim competitively."

"It's risky to cross the street," says his father. "But are you going to spend all your life on the block where you were born?"

"It's not the same thing, Dad."

"The hell it is."

"This is my shoulder, Dad. That I lift with. That I use. _My _shoulder."

"Jarick didn't think it was risky."

"Jarick!" says Percy, dismissing the man as well as his opinion with a wave of his hand. Dr. Jarick had been the fourth and last doctor they had consulted, the one his father had been looking for all along, the swim fan.

"All he said was, if it happened again, he could probably fix it," says Percy. "Because he can 'work miracles.' "

"He's the best," says his father. "Ondone even said so."

Dr. Ondone was one of the other three doctors they consulted, one of the three that worried about the consequences of a second dislocation.

"Thanks to Jarick, there are guys swimming and playing baseball today who experts had written off as hopeless cripples," says his father.

"Dad."

"Did he work on Maddox or was it Martinez? Maybe it was Pettitte."

"Dad," says Percy. "It doesn't matter. I don't want to be in a position where all the experts are writing me off as a hopeless cripple."

His father looks at him.

"Even if Jarick _can_ work miracles," Percy tells him, "I don't want to need a miracle to make it possible for me open a door or lift a cup of coffee."

"You are just scared," says his father. "That's normal. But in time you will get over that."

_He doesn't get it!_

"It's over, Dad. I've decided."

_Say it!_

"I'm not swimming competitively anymore."

_There!_

His father blinks his eyes in disbelief.

"You have to," he says.

Calmly.

Like there's no question about it.

Like it's Percy's duty.

"Why?" Percy asks him.

"Why?" asks his father. He's getting angry now. The shock of what Percy's told him is wearing off and he's getting angry.

"Because!" he says, fighting to control his temper. "Because of all the time and energy you've put into it. Because of all the work you've done. Because of all the goals you've set for yourself."

"What goals, Dad?"

"To be the best!" says his father.

"That's what it's about?" asks Percy.

"Yes," says his father. "That's what it's about. Being the best damned swimmer in the whole damned world."

"Being a winner," says Percy.

"Yes!"

"No matter what it costs."

"You pay the price," says his father.

"To get the winner's share of the glory," says Percy.

"Yes," says his father. "Is there something wrong with that?"

"No," says Percy. "I guess not."

"You _guess_ not?"

"Except those aren't my goals."

"Since when?" asks his father.

"Since forever, Dad," says Percy. "Those are your goals."

"The hell they are!" his father shouts. "They're everybody's goals! Only not everybody has the stuff to achieve them! And you do! If you've got the guts to accept a little risk!"

Percy does not believe it! "Jesus, Dad!"

"Everything in life's a risk," his father tells him. "Airplanes fall out of the sky. Food gets tampered with. Lunatics shoot up an office building."

But Percy is not listening. He did not expect this to be easy. But he never thought he'd hear his own father accusing him of lacking guts. He never thought he'd see his father practically daring him to risk crippling himself.

_For what? _he asks himself. _For a medal? For whom?_

He wants to cry, but he doesn't. He gets to his feet and walks over to the window and stands there, looking out.

After awhile, he hears his father heave a sigh.

"What do _you_ want to do?" he asks. "What are _your_ goals?"

"I don't know, Dad."

"Of course you don't."

Turning away from the window, Percy looks across the room at his father. He's sitting on the sofa, watching the guacamole changing color, looking utterly defeated.

"But I must be good for something more than just swimming," says Percy. "Don't you think?"

"Sure," says his father. "But what?"

"I don't know," says Percy.

"Shit!" says his father. He slams his hand on the coffee table and gets to his feet. "You want a drink?"

"You mean a _drink,_ drink?"

"Yes."

"No," says Percy. "No thanks."

"I do," says his father. "Several."

As he turns and moves off to the bar on the other side of the room, Percy watches him.

"I love you, Dad."

"I know," says his father. "I love you, too."

"I know," says Percy.

* * *

**A/N:** **A short chapter, but one I really enjoyed working on. As you can see, Percy is starting to come into his own and be his own person. It is never easy telling someone how you feel, but I feel like it was important for Percy to tell his dad that his dreams are not his dad's dreams.**

**I know, I know! You all want Percabeth! It is right around the corner. I promise! **

**Thank you for all the wonderful support - especially those who say that they love how I have developed the characters. Any questions or feedback are graciously appreciated. And those of you who review all the time, I thank you and I hope you like the little secrets I have been sharing you in my replies.**

**Until next time...**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading! - MFP**


	27. Chapter 26  Annabeth

**Chapter 26 – Annabeth**

_One day, someone will come to you  
And rock you tightly in her arms  
Please remember this, when you drop your guard  
Nobody has an unbreakable heart_

_From an angel's wings to a fallen star_  
_God makes everything but unbreakable heart_

Annabeth was watching a tear, poised on the edge of her eyelid. She was waiting for it to spill over and inch down her cheek.

She was standing in her bedroom, looking in the full-length mirror that was mounted on the back of her closet door.

For the last fifteen minutes, she's been trying on the clothes her parents bought her for Christmas, slipping into jeans and shirts a full size smaller than she usually wore.

And listening to really sappy music.

She did not want to lose the weight. These things happen when all you do is sleep, cry and listen to really sappy music. It had occurred to her that she might make a fortune writing _The Heartbreak Diet Book._

As she lifted her new raspberry cashmere sweater up and over her head, she'd laughed at the idea. But as she pulled free of the sweater and emerged into the light, she took a good look at herself in the mirror. Standing there, with her jutting ribs and her hollowed cheeks and sunken eyes, she looked anything but funny.

In fact, she was so much the picture of heartbreak, she'd been moved to tears.

Again.

It was humiliating.

Anybody could have told her that Luke was a clown. People would have stood in line to tell her. But that would not have stopped her.

Not Annabeth Chase!

Once she had made her mind up, nothing could have stopped her from throwing herself at Luke, body and soul.

It was not the physical part she felt cheated out of anyway. It was the love.

Luke made her believe he loved her, when all he really loved was himself.

He played her for a fool and a fool she was.

_Who do you think you are?  
Runnin' round leaving scars  
Collecting your jar of hearts  
And tearing love apart  
You're gonna catch a cold  
From the ice inside your soul  
So don't come back for me  
Who do you think you are?_

Looking in the mirror, Annabeth made herself a promise – it would never happen again.

Annabeth Chase would never let another boy fool her into thinking he loved her, and more importantly, she would never fool herself into thinking she loved another boy.

She _had _her love affair.

And that was that.

Maybe, one day, she thought, when she was much older, she would meet someone mature enough to appreciate her for her inner qualities.

Of course, by then, her outer qualities would probably be all wrinkled and saggy. But he wouldn't care.

Until then – until Mr. Old came along – she would…

What would she do?

She would pack her bag and get ready to drive into New York City with her father, tomorrow morning. That's what she would do.

She tore herself away from the mirror and retrieved her suitcase out of the closet. She opened it up on her bed and began filling it.

She was going to New York to baby-sit her twelve-year-old cousin, Courtney. Courtney's father and mother, Annabeth's Uncle Nicky and Auntie Linda, were flying off to the Caribbean for the week. Their housekeeper, who usually stayed with Courtney when her parents were away, had been promised a trip home to Jamaica to visit with her family.

So Annabeth's Auntie Linda called and asked Annabeth's stepmother, Helen, if Annabeth would be interested in spending a week in New York.

Helen thought it was a wonderful idea.

She knew Annabeth loved Courtney and she knew that she loved New York. And she thought a week of living in a Fifth Avenue apartment and mingling with the holiday crowds that thronged the city's streets might be just the thing to snap Annabeth out of her funk and get her back on her feet.

The only problem, Helen thought, was New Year's Eve. She thought Annabeth might have made plans. When she asked Annabeth how she would feel about spending New Year's in New York, Annabeth surprised her by saying, "Sure. Why not?"

Annabeth had been dreading New Year's Eve, ever since Katie said that she as having a party. At first, Annabeth thought she would say yes to the invitation. She did not have a date, but being at a party, even without a date, would probably be a lot better that staying home and "celebrating" New Year's alone.

Katie said that Travis was inviting some guys he knew from New York City to come to the party. They were guys he plays online video games with and were really great. And that it would be good for Annabeth to meet some new people.

It was then that Annabeth visualized a picture of herself at Katie's party. At the stroke of midnight, she saw herself standing all alone, waiting for some charitable stranger to come along and give her a kiss. The way she pictured herself, she looked so pathetic, it was more than she could bear.

She told Katie she was sorry, but she had already made other plans.

Annabeth had also been invited to a party at Thalia Grace's house.

Thalia called and said that she did not want to lose Annabeth's friendship, just because their "mutual acquaintance" had "traded down to an inferior model." But, when Thalia admitted that she had also invited their "mutual acquaintance" to her party and that he would probably be coming with his "Swedish Meatball," that did it.

It was bad enough watching Luke every day after school, rushing to the parking lot and racing off to pick up his "Swedish Meatball." She did not need to be at the same party with him, watching him nibbling on his hors d'oeuvres.

She especially did not need to see him sneaking off to show her Thalia's tree house.

Annabeth told Thalia she was sorry, but she already made other plans. She did promise her that she would call her after the holiday to they could hang out.

_I know that I should get on with my life  
But a life lived without you could never be right_

_As long as the stars shine down from the heaven_  
_As long as the river runs to the sea_  
_I'll never get over you getting over me_

So tomorrow Annabeth was going to New York City, where she and Courtney would probably welcome in the New Year with a hug and toast each other with glasses of grape juice.

If going to New York would not do much for her, at least it would cheer up her stepmother.

Annabeth knew she had been a horrible drag on Helen ever since the night of Luke's opening, when she kept her up half the night, carrying on like a delirious three-year-old. Her stepmother had been very sweet that night and for days after. She comforted Annabeth when she needed comforting and left her alone when she needed to be left alone.

There was not a trace of pity in her sympathy. There was no indifference to her detachment. She did not offer any advice until Annabeth asked her for it. And then, when Annabeth finally asked her for advice, Helen told her about all the times she had her own heart broken, and how, over the years, she had discovered that only sure cure for a broken heart was falling in love again.

Which did not help.

Because Annabeth did not want to put herself through that type of pain ever again.

Through all her moping, her baleful silences, her endless staring off into space, the playing of sappy songs over and over again, and her sudden fits of sobbing, Helen had done her best to be there for her.

But, Helen was not a saint. Her patience was wearing thin, and Annabeth could not really blame her. Her patience with herself was wearing thin, too.

She wished she could just say good riddance to bad rubbish or something equally wise and get on with what was left of her life.

As much as she wanted to, she couldn't.

For now, the best she could do was give her stepmother a break and get out from under feet for awhile.

She was trying to decide whether she should pack her new cashmere sweater or not when there was knock on her bedroom door.

Still holding the sweater, Annabeth opened the door and screamed.

"Grover!"

Before she knew it, she was throwing her arms around her dearest friend. And then the tears started.

Again.

"What are you doing here?"

"I haven't seen you since school ended for the holidays so I thought I would swing by and say hi. So, Hi!"

"Hi!"

As Grover walked into her room, she noticed he was a little bit nervous. Well, more nervous than is usually for Grover.

"Grover," said Annabeth. "Are you okay?"

"Wha, what?" he bleated. "Of course I am fine. Why? Why do you ask?"

"Well, you seem like you are ready to jump out of your skin," she said.

"Okay," he said. "I came here on a quest."

"A quest?" laughed Annabeth.

"Yes, a quest" he said. "A quest to cheer you up and to talk some sense into you."

Annabeth said nothing. She had a feeling she knew where this was going. And she was not ready to go there just yet.

"You are like a sister to me, Annabeth. And I just can't sit back and watch you wither away to nothing. And I am not just talking about your weight, although you seem to be looking a little too much like Nicole Ritchie circa 2005 for my taste."

"I am not trying to lose the weight. I just – "

"I know. I am the opposite when I am sad or stressed. You can say I 'eat my feelings.' But this is not about me. It's about you."

_It was really nice to meet you, goodbye  
It's high time I quit wondering why  
Cause I have lost all that I can  
From my side  
When you think of me again  
Know I tried, I tried  
Goodbye_

There was a few moments of silence while Grover gathered his thoughts. By this time, they were both sitting cross-legged on Annabeth's bed, facing each other. Annabeth was playing with her necklace and Grover was tossing the empty soda can in his hand.

Then, Grover let out a big sigh.

"I should have said something when you started dating Luke. I wanted to, but I was too afraid that you would get mad."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I knew almost right away that Luke was not good enough for you. It was not just him being a prankster and all that. Travis and Connor are the Kings of the Clowns now and they are pretty cool guys. There was just something about him that didn't seem right. I didn't like his aura or the vibes he was giving off."

"Aura and vibes? Are you reading those paranormal books again?"

"I am being serious," he said hurtfully. "I can just sense things about people and nature in general. Some people give off a certain light. Some are very bright and positive, like you. And some are not, like Luke. Every time I was around him, I sensed darkness. And the more you were with him, the more your light faded."

Annabeth said nothing. For some reason, what Grover just said hit close to home.

"You changed when you were with him. First the haircut and then the clothes. Then you started to blow us off for him. You never did that before, even when you dated that idiot on the hockey team two years ago. You always made time for your friends. Katie, Lily and I hardly saw you at all these past two months. It was all Luke, all the time."

She could feel her cheeks starting to turn red, not from anger, but from shame.

"Why didn't you – " her voices trailed off.

"Say anything?" Grover finished. "Because I know you and have a stubborn streak a mile wide. Nothing I or anyone said would make you change your mind."

_And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe  
Maybe this year will be better than the last_

After a few more moments of silence, she gave a weak smile. "True. Very true. I'm so sorry, Grover. I never should have let him dictate my life. And I am sorry for being a crappy friend. Can you forgive me?"

"Of course!" he exclaimed. "I was just afraid you would have punched my lights out for saying all this."

"Never!"

"I have missed you, Annabeth. Truly."

"I have missed you too, Grover. More than you know."

"Okay, now that is over, I do have one request."

"What's that?"

"Can we stop it will all the depressing music? I like easy listening as much as the next guy, but you are killing me here."

He leaned over and grabbed her iPod from its docking stations. "You have a 'Breakable' playlist? Neil Diamond? Barry Manilow? Tom Waits? No wonder you are always crying."

"Hey, give me that! And if you must know, I also have a 'Kick His Ass' playlist with Fiona Apple, Pink and Britney on it. Thank you very much."

"Well let's put on some Britney and get our groove on," he said.

Annabeth laughed her first real laugh in weeks. Grover, for all the wonderful qualities he possesses, has two left feet. But that does not stop him from wanting to bust a move.

It happened about thirty minutes into their dance party. With Britney bellowing out

_Superstar, where you from, how's it going?  
I know you, gotta clue whatcha doing  
You can play brand new to all the other chicks out here  
But I know what you are, what you are, baby_

_Look at you, getting more than just a re-up_  
_Baby you, got all the puppets with their strings up_  
_Faking like a good one, but I call 'em like I see 'em_  
_I know what you are, what you are, baby_

_Womanizer, woman-womanizer, you're a womanizer,_  
_Oh womanizer, oh you're a womanizer, baby_  
_You you you are, you you you are_  
_Womanizer, womanizer, womanizer_

Annabeth's cell phone rang. Without thinking, she walked over to her desk and picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Annabeth."

With the music still blaring, it was hard to hear. Waving to Grover to turn the volume down, she said "Who is this?"

"How soon they forget."

"Luke?"

"In person."

"No, thank you." She hit the off button.

Grover was shocked. "Was that Luke?"

"Yes! The bastard! The nerve of him calling up and acting like he wasn't the worst piece of – "

Her phone rang again.

"Don't answer it!" said Grover.

Annabeth took a deep breath, gritted her teeth and pressed the on button. Grover came over to her side so he could listen in.

"You are not the only one with a broken heart," said Luke.

Annabeth said nothing.

Grover rolled his eyes.

"You may find this hard to believe, but I happen to love you, Annabeth. I mean it. But I also happen to love Josie. I know that's supposed to be impossible. To love two people at the same time. But it isn't. Because I do. I love you and I love Josie, too."

Still Annabeth said nothing.

Grover started to turn bright red.

"Josie doesn't understand, either," he said. "But I told her I didn't care. I told her, just because I was seeing her, didn't mean I didn't want to see you anymore. I want to see you, Annabeth. I have to."

Still Annabeth said nothing.

Grover, however, looked like he was ready to reach through the phone and strangle Luke.

"Josie said I had to make a choice," said Luke. "A choice between you and her. By the time she comes back from Mexico. After New Year's. So I thought, if you weren't busy tonight, we could – "

"Go to hell!" she screamed.

She hurled her phone across the room, threw herself onto her bed and burst into tears. Grover sat down next to her and rubbed her back.

When her phone rang again, she told Grover to just leave it.

A minute later, the house phone downstairs started to ring.

At the top of her voice, Annabeth shouted, "I'm not here!"

Downstairs, someone answered the phone.

Upstairs, Annabeth sobbed into her pillow until she heard footsteps coming up the stairs, walking to her door.

"Annabeth?"

It was her father.

"Tell him I am not here!"

"He said he knows you are here."

"Then tell him to go fuck himself!" she shouted at him.

"Annabeth!" said both her father and Grover.

"I mean it!" she shouted. "Tell him to –"

"Okay!" said her father. "Okay. I'll get rid of him"

Burying her head back in her pillow, she heard her father leave the room and plod back down the stairs.

She was an idiot! An idiot to think that dancing around her room with Grover to Girl Power music would make the pain go away.

Sometime later, not too long after her father had gone, Julie heard her stepmother climbing the stairs. She felt terrible for putting all of them through this.

"I'm sorry, Helen."

Helen walked over to the bed and sat down next to Grover. Very quietly, but very firmly, she said, "You have to stop this now, Annabeth."

"How can I?" Annabeth cried.

"You have to make yourself," her stepmother told her. "Even if it means putting on an act."

"For _him?"_

"No," she said. "For you. You have to act like you're over him and keep at it, until you start to believe it."

"I'll _never_ believe it."

"You have to start _now_, Annabeth!" she said. "Right now! Before you dig a hole for yourself that's too deep to get out of. Do you hear me?"

"Yes."

"Will you do what I'm asking you? Starting now?"

"I'll try," said Annabeth. "But tomorrow, okay? Okay?"

"Okay," said her stepmother.

"I told him," said Annabeth's father.

He must have been standing in the doorway. Annabeth could not look at him. "Thank you," she told him.

"I think I shocked him" said her father.

"I wish you'd electrocuted him!" said Annabeth.

Grover and her stepmother laughed. "That's the spirit!"

After a few more minutes of pep talks, her parents left her bedroom. Grover then asked her if she wanted him to stay a little while longer.

"No," she said. "It's okay. I need to finish packing anyway."

"Call me when you get to New York, okay?"

"Definitely," she said. "And Grover? Thank you. For everything."

"Anytime, Annabeth. That's what friends are for."

After Annabeth finished packing, she decided to make another playlist on her iPod – "Getting Over It."

With a smile, she hit play and the first song filled her room.

_Smile though your heart is aching  
Smile even though it's breaking.  
When there are clouds in the sky  
you'll get by._

_If you smile through your pain and sorrow_  
_Smile and maybe tomorrow_  
_You'll see the sun come shining through_  
_For you._

_Light up your face with gladness,_  
_Hide every trace of sadness_

_Although a tear may be ever so near  
That's the time you must keep on trying  
Smile, what's the use of crying.  
You'll find that life is still worthwhile-  
If you just smile._

* * *

**A/N: This was one of the hardest chapters to write. I hate having Annabeth so miserable, but I feel like I needed to show just how much Luke hurt her. Annabeth has dug herself a hole, but with the love of her family and Grover, she will make it through. And I have a feeling that she might meet someone very special on this trip to New York City.**

**Although I do have a "Breakable" playlist on my iPod and all those songs in this chapter are on it, I do not own them. In case you are wondering, the songs are:**

**"Unbreakable Heart" by Carlene Carter**

**"Jar of Hearts" by Christina Perri**

**"I'll Never Get Over You, Getting Over Me" by Expose**

**"Goodbye" by Greg Laswell**

**"Long December" by Counting Crows**

**"Womanizer" by Britney Spears**

**"Smile" by Charlie Chaplin**

**Thank you for the tremendous support and feedback. You are the best fans anyone could have.**

**Until next time.**

**Enjoy and Happy Reading - MFP**


	28. Chapter 27  Percy and Annabeth

**Chapter 27**

**Percy**

_Bzzzz…_

Rachel Elizabeth Dare opens her door. "Happy New Year!" she exclaims.

"Happy New Year, Red. You look terrific," Percy tells her.

She's wearing a red silk dress with spaghetti straps that hits her just below the knee. Her red hair is in waves cascading down her back. Her big green eyes are lined with black. Her mouth is bright red. She looks like a shy little girl and a sexy older woman, both at once, and all rolled into one.

"Not so bad yourself, Perce." Percy is dressed in loafers, pleated khakis, and a dark green button-down shirt. And as of yesterday, no sling for his arm.

Rachel kisses his cheek and takes his coat. She deposits it on the well-stocked coat rack near the door. She leads him into her richly furnished living room, with its Persian rugs and fine antique furniture, its collection of fine paintings and its giant plasma flat-screen television.

The TV is on and tuned in to the big New Year's party that is going on in Times Square. Percy isn't sure if it's Dick Clark's New Year's Rocking Eve or Carson Daly's lame attempt to do the same. And honestly, he doesn't care.

"Champagne?" she asks.

"What?" asks Percy. He was lost in thoughts about Callie. He wonders where she is right now and if she is thinking of him. "Oh, yeah. Sure! Want me to open it?"

"It's open," says Rachel. "You sit."

Percy sits.

"So are you sure you don't mind missing that party in Connecticut Beckendorf invited us to?" asks Rachel.

"Yeah, I am not really in the mood to be around a lot of people. Especially people I don't know."

"Same here," she says.

Rachel goes over to the handsome, black antique bar and lifts a bottle of champagne out if it's sparkling crystal ice bucket and fills two long-stemmed glasses with champagne. She carries the two glasses across the room, hands one to Percy, and raises the other.

"To better times," she says.

"Better times," he returns.

They clink glasses and drink. And then Rachel joins Percy on the sofa. They have about two hours to kill before midnight, but it goes pretty quickly.

Rachel has to hear all about Percy's shoulder, about the injury and the surgery and the consultations and the physical therapy – all of it. She's a big _Grey's Anatomy_ fan and she can't get enough of the gory details.

"So that's it," she says, when Percy is finally done tell her everything. "No more swimming."

"That's it. At least for the foreseeable future."

"Doesn't it feel strange? I mean, haven't you always been a swimmer."

Percy nods. "Even before I could walk, my mom says."

"So," says Rachel.

Percy looks at her. "What does it feel like, you mean? Knowing I can't keep doing what I've always done?"

"I think I know," says Rachel. "It's scary, huh?"

Percy nods. "I used to bitch about swimming lately," he says. "The pressure from my dad. The pressure to break Webber's record. The pressure to impress the coaches and pick the right school to go to. But now."

He shrugs and shakes his head. "I loved a lot of it, especially as a kid. Getting to the pool while everyone was still asleep and watching the sunrise while I grind out the miles. The feeling when your relay team clicks. The camaraderie with the guys on the team. But then everything changed."

Percy laughs and waves his hands in the air. "So long!"

"But you used to bitch about it," Rachel reminds him.

"Yeah," says Percy. "Towards the end, I never liked swimming as much as my father liked me swimming. Whatever I did in the pool, no matter what it was, I was really swimming for him. Or for Coach Levine. Or for some college coach with a big fat scholarship to offer me. I wasn't really swimming for me, you know? I guess I lost…"

"That loving feeling?" Rachel finished, trying not to laugh too hard.

"Yeah, that loving feeling. I don't know. Whenever I get the okay to swim again, I am going to do it for me. I will swim when I want, the distance I want. Hell, even the stroke I want."

"But for now?" asks Rachel.

"I've been thinking about getting into film," Percy tells her. He looks to see her reaction. Rachel does not laugh or even crack a smile. "Maybe go to NYU."

"That's great," says Rachel.

"I don't know," says Percy. "I'm just thinking about it. I've always liked photography and movies, so maybe…"

"I guess you'll be a director, huh?"

Percy laughs. "Why do you think that?" He has no idea what he might be or even what there is to be. He's seen all those credits at the ends of movies, listing grips and best boys and assistant producers and production assistants and he does not have the vaguest notion what any of them actually do.

"Because the director is the one in charge," she says. "And that's what you're good at."

Percy smiles and shakes his head. "It's not like being the captain of a high school swim team."

"I thought everything was like everything else," she says.

"Maybe," he says.

"So who is she?"

"Huh?"

"Who is she?"

"Who is who?"

"The girl who's made you so sad," says Rachel.

"Oh," says Percy. "You mean it shows?"

"I don't think I ever saw you sad before."

"Well." Percy shrugs. "It's New Year's, you know."

"Not for another two and a half minutes," says Rachel. "So? Are you going to tell me who she is?"

"Who she _was_," Percy corrects her. "I don't know who she was. I might have just made her up."

"Just to fall in love with," says Rachel.

"Yeah!" says Percy. _That's exactly it!_ He'd needed to fall in love with somebody and Callie made it easy.

"How did you know that?" he asks.

Rachel shrugs. "I do it all the time myself," she says. "It's one of the reasons why I'm having my head examined."

"Because you make up people to fall in love with?"

"Yeah," she says. "And because these guys I fall in love with, even if I _did_ make them up. I didn't make up how I felt when they said 'Thanks a lot, Rachel, I'll see you around' or 'I'll call you.' And then they never would. Or maybe they did, once or twice. But then they stopped. That really _happened_."

"I'm sorry," Percy tells her.

On the TV, you can see the big ball in the background, getting ready to begin its descent.

"It's getting close," says Rachel.

Any second now, the countdown to the New Year will begin.

"I was afraid," says Rachel. "I was afraid I'd get so scared of having my heart broken, I wouldn't have the courage to fall in love anymore. And if I thought that – that I would never fall in love again…" Rachel shrugs. "What would be the sense of living?"

"There are other reasons for living. Besides being in love," points out Percy.

"Are there?" asks Rachel.

"There'd better be," says Percy.

"Ten…"

The crowd in Times Square starts the countdown.

"Nine…"

"Are you crying?" asks Rachel.

"Eight…"

"I guess," says Percy.

"Seven…"

Rachel puts her hand on his. "Go ahead," she says.

"Six…"

"It's embarrassing," says Percy.

"Five…"

"I'm flattered," says Rachel.

"Four…"

"Three..."

"Two…"

"One…"

"Happy New Year!"

"Happy New Year, Percy."

"Happy New Year, Rachel."

Rachel leans in and kisses Percy. It's a gentle, sweet kiss, more friendlily than passionate. When it's over and Rachel leans back away from him, Percy sees that she is crying, too. But then she laughs and says, "It's catching."

Percy laughs, too.

"Do you think you can just hold me?" Rachel asks.

"I think so," says Percy.

She comes into his arms and he holds her. The two of them just sit there, with silent tears running down their faces, both deep in thought about the year that just passed and the year that is yet to be.

With a final hug, he leaves Rachel's house and takes off down the street.

Percy walks until dawn.

Percy walks from Rachel's house on Central Park West, all the way down to Greenwich Village and then back, through Washington Square and up Fifth Avenue.

After about four o'clock, the city is strangely peaceful and he takes some of its quiet and its calm into himself. He'd dreaded New Year's Eve, but it turned out to be a good night after all. Rachel could not have been sweeter or more understanding. She's really a terrific person and he's grateful he has her for a friend.

Callie….

In a way, it's too bad about her. Too bad _for _her, really. Maybe things wouldn't have worked out between her and him. Maybe she never intended them to. Maybe Jack is the right guy for her. Maybe she knew that all along.

_Maybe she made _me_ up!_

It doesn't matter now.

He loved Callie. A part of him always will.

He wishes her well.

And for himself…?

During those dark weeks when he was skipping school, he thought some very dark thoughts.

He felt like there was never anyone before Callie and that there probably wouldn't be anyone after her.

And how he knows it's possible to make a rich and meaningful life for yourself without having a woman you love to share your life with. That you can devote your life to your work and your hobbies and your friends. And you can find comfort and pleasure with women who you'll never love completely, in the way that you know you can.

But now?

He knows it will never be the same. Nothing will ever be the same.

Callie burned him, bad. She broke him and his heart.

But does that mean she needs to win?

Does that mean she needs to ruin love for him for the rest of his life?

"Hell no!" Percy shouts out to the lightening sky.

It's a new year. The old one is behind him. The world is alive with unexplored possibilities.

Percy hears music. The oom-pah of an organ. He looks at his watch. It's just nine o'clock. He's standing at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fiftieth Street. The music is coming from the west.

_Rockerfeller Center_, he thinks. _The skating rink._ He wonders who might be skating at this hour. He decides he'll take a look.

* * *

**Annabeth**

"Happy New Year!" said Courtney.

"Says you," said Annabeth.

Annabeth had promised Courtney she'd take her skating this morning, but when Courtney woke her at seven o'clock in the morning, and said "Let's go get our skate on," she'd forgotten all about it.

Annabeth sent Courtney to find out when the Rockerfeller Center skating rink opened and she went back to sleep. Courtney woke Annabeth up again to tell her the rink didn't open until nine o'clock. Annabeth thanked her for the information and rolled over to fall asleep.

Again.

"I'm hungry," said Courtney. "Aren't you?"

"Fine, I'm up! I'm up!" said Annabeth.

"Good morning sleepyhead!"

Annabeth had her doubts.

But now, as she sailed across the rink at the heart of Rockerfeller Center, Annabeth was thinking that Courtney might be right.

Maybe the new year would be a happy one.

She'd been happy before without Luke. Why shouldn't she be happy again without Luke? As a matter of fact, she wasn't so far from happy right now.

With everybody in New York City fast asleep or nursing morning-after hangovers, she and Courtney had the whole rink practically to themselves. The only people on the ice with them were this very old couple. Dressed in matching outfits – hats, gloves, scarves and all – they were moving slowly and gracefully around the rink, taking turns supporting each other in an elegant dance routine that they must have practiced all their lives.

Aside from them, there was only a guy sitting at the side of the rink, hunched over a chair and lacing up his skates.

Tagging along behind Annabeth, Courtney was a pretty good skater and, with hardly anyone around, she didn't need much supervision.

It began to snow.

Annabeth tilted her head back and felt the gently falling snowflakes sting her face. Looking straight up at the sky and seeing the snow falling in its graceful pattern, Annabeth imagined herself looking down a magical wishing well.

Closing her eyes, she wished herself "Happy New Year" and then –

_BANG!_

She crashed into something and –

_OOF!_

She was flat on her back, lying on the ice, looking up into the face of this incredibly good looking, terribly embarrassed, and unmistakably amused young guy.

"I am so sorry," he said. "I didn't see you. Are you okay?"

He had jet black hair and the most amazing sea-green eyes.

"Can I give you a hand?" he asked.

He reached his hand down to her.

Annabeth took his hand, and then, acting on sudden impulse, she yanked it – "Hey!" he shouted – and pulled him down to the ice.

He didn't move.

He just lay there, flat on his back, beside her, looking straight up at the sky.

For a second, Annabeth was afraid she'd hurt him.

But then he started laughing, chuckling at first, but building up, louder and louder, until she thought he might laugh his head off.

Finally, when he got himself under control, he looked over at Annabeth. There were tears in the corners of his sea-green eyes, but there was also a huge smile on his face. He held out his hand to Annabeth and said, "Hi. Percy Jackson."

Shaking his hand, Annabeth smiled and said, "Annabeth Chase. Nice bumping into you."

Which set him off laughing again.

"I guess I needed someone to knock me on my ass," he said.

"My pleasure," said Annabeth.

He looked over at her, smiled and kept looking at her with those breath taking eyes.

"I guess I did, too" said Annabeth.

"Glad I could be of assistance."

"Are you okay?" said Courtney as she skated over to Annabeth's side.

Without taking his eyes off Annabeth's, Percy said to Courtney, "We're fine."

Without taking her eyes off Percy's, Annabeth said, "Courtney, this is Percy Jackson."

As Percy smiled, Courtney said, "Hi."

Still looking in Annabeth's eyes, Percy said, "Nice to meet you."

"You, too," said Courtney. She turned and skated away.

A moment passed.

"Well," said Percy, "I guess there's only one way to go from here." He rolled over onto his stomach and got to his feet. He reached both hands down to Annabeth.

She took his hands and, this time, she didn't yank him down to the ice.

This time, she let him pull her up, and as she came to her feet, she let her momentum carry her straight into his arms.

THE END!

* * *

**A/N: Before you all kill me, please read Chapter 28. It has information about a SEQUEL!**


	29. Chapter 28

**Author's Note**

I hope you, my dear reader, have decided to read this section. I know some of you are probably mad with how I ended the story.

A part of me is sorry for that.

However, I knew from the very beginning how the story was going to end. Actually, I had the last chapter written for about three months now.

For me, this was not a story about Percabeth. It was a story about Percy and Annabeth.

Two different people. Two different lives. And how they found each other.

It was a story about "What if?"

In the PJO series, Calypso was a "what if?" for Percy and Luke was a "what if?" for Annabeth. I wanted to see what would happen if those "what if?" actually happened. But, I wanted to do it AU because I wanted Percy and Annabeth's lives to be separate from one another.

This was a story about character development. About growing up. Falling in love and getting hurt. It was about losing everything (or _feeling_ like you lost everything) and then recovering from it.

A few months ago, someone mentioned to me that they did not like how I was portraying the characters. They felt I was branching too far away from how Percy and Annabeth are in the books. Some of you may agree with that.

Fair point.

I thought long and hard on how I wanted to develop these characters. I started this story in December even though I didn't post it until February. I wanted to explore the darker side of their personalities. The "what would happen if?"

We all have different sides to our personalities. We all have some good parts and some bad parts. There are people and events in our lives that either bring out our best or our worst. For Percy and Annabeth, Callie and Luke brought out their bad side – obsession, sneaking around, blowing off friends, changing their appearance, etc. I did that to drive home the point just how _wrong_ Callie was for Percy and Luke was for Annabeth.

I can surely attest to the fact that there are things I have done that I am not proud of all in the name of "love." Percy and Annabeth are not perfect and they make mistakes, too.

Will there be a sequel?

I honestly don't think so.

The story always about how Percy and Annabeth found each other and the trials and heartache they had to go through to get to that point.

For me, having them "bump" into each other and literally knock each other on their asses was the perfect ending. And to have it happen on New Year's Day – the day to start over anew and put all the bad stuff from the previous year behind you – is symbolic to me in many ways.

Now they are ready for each other. Now they are ready to be in a healthy, loving relationship. Now they are ready for Percabeth.

A few more things before I sign off….

I should have done this in the beginning, but this story is dedicated to my son, Noah. Thank you my sweet little guy for showing me the meaning of true, unconditional love.

When I started on this journey on February 15th, I had no idea what type of response I would receive. I would have been happy if one person read my story and stuck with it until the end. Approximately 70,000 words later, I have 219 reviews (from 59 different people), 26,610 hits, 90 added me to their favorites and 76 added me to their alerts.

Words fail to describe how much that means to me. The loyalty, support and feedback have been truly amazing. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You all made me want to keep writing, especially when it was 2:00am and I was struggling with writer's block.

I would like to thank the following readers who have been there since the beginning, who would always give me great feedback and stuck with it even when some said I was "dragging it out."

FilmyFurry

MilashCayJeeWilliams

AnnabethChase-Jackson 14

C-Nuggets N.L

Biancadiangelo0703

Hello there – I didn't see you

2ne1forever

4cloverseeds

Carter Lee Grace

Brickwall847

Meeeethegr8

Apollo11o

I know that there are many of you who have been there from the beginning and I may not know who you are but I thank you as well. I am in debt to each and every one of you who read this story.

Finally to Avatard1234. Thank you for being my pseudo-beta reader and for giving me the push to post the story in the first place. We may not have always seen eye-to-eye on certain aspects of this story, but I think that's what helped me out the most. I can only hope to be as fine a writer as you.

For the last time….

Enjoy and Happy Reading,

MFP


	30. Chapter 29  Important author's note

Hey everyone! No, this is not a long lost chapter for 'Perfect Strangers.' It is a chance to tell you all about something very exciting and to ask for your help.

I am not sure if you all are aware of the Veritas Awards. Fanmortals is a website devoted to PJO FanFiction. They have created the Veritas Awards to acknowledge those stories FF readers have found exciting, fun, touching and just plain awesome.

I am giddy with excitement to announce that 'Perfect Strangers' has been nominated for Best Alternate Universe (completed story). It is a huge honor and I am forever grateful to any of you who may have nominated me.

If you feel that this story is worthy of winning, please vote for me. Voting is from today September 4th, and will end on September 17th. Winners will be announced September 18th.

Here's the website:

.

And to thank you all for reading this "chapter" aka plea for your votes, I wanted to let you in on a little secret. Percy and Annabeth may have (finally) met, but I am not done with the 'Perfect Strangers' world just yet. I am going to do a series of one-shots about the other characters and storylines from 'Perfect Strangers.' Why? Well, I feel like sometimes the supporting cast in the story can be just as fun and exciting as the main characters. Plus, I want to be able to put all the ideas that I was not able to use the first time to good use.

Thank you to JustAnotherAthenaGirl who informed me of the Veritas Awards and thought that I was worthy of a nomination and for thinking that the one-shot idea is a good one. If you are reading this, I so want you as my Beta and will PM you tonight or tomorrow.

Hope all is well for you my dear readers. Take care!

Happy Reading!

MFP


	31. Sneak Peak 'Perfect Strangers:OneShots

Yes, this is another shameless plug by yours truly to inform you about The Veritas Award that 'Perfect Strangers' is nominated for. If you love this story and think it is worthy of winning Best Alternate Universe, then please vote for me.

./

And as a thank you, here is a sneak peak at the first ever Perfect Strangers One-Shots. I will create a new story called 'Perfect Strangers: One-Shots' (wow, original, right?) so if you have me as a Favorite Author or Alert, then you will know when it is out there. All one-shots will be under that story name. I hope to have it up in the next few days. Until then...

**Chapter One - Getting Inked **

"Dude! You are going to get what?" Nico, Beckendorf and Rachel exclaimed at the same time.

"A turtle," Percy mumbled again.

"Yeah," said Nico. "That's what we thought you said."

"Perce, that is so macho!" continued Beckendorf.

"Oh lay off him," said Rachel coming to his defense. "I think it's super cute and sweet."

And after a pause of five seconds, the three of them started rolling around and laughing again.

The four of them were chilling in Rachel's bedroom. "Bedroom" is used loosely since it takes over the entire fourth floor of her parent's brownstone on the Upper East Side. It was a cold and snowy Saturday in mid-January.

Percy already had his killer swim workout that morning. Nothing like churning out nine miles in the pool when it is below freezing outside.

Beckendorf already spent two two-hour sessions at the gym trying to get himself even more buff.

Nico, well Nico was finished doing whatever he does when the other two are busy.

Rachel spent that time painting some obscure picture and blasting her angry chick rock music loud enough to drive away her parents to their ski house in Vermont.

It was while she was painting that she came up her brilliant idea. One by one, she called the boys and told them to get their hot little buns to her house.

Pronto!

By chance, they showed up at the same time and when she opened the door, Rachel skipped the normal greeting and informed them, "We are getting tattoos!"

* * *

Thank you again for those of you who think doing the one-shots is a good idea and for supporting my nomination.

**JustAnotherAthenaGirl **- still want to be my Beta?

**meeeethegr8 -** thanks for vioting and for letting me know it's an awesome idea.

**Hello there - I didn't see u -** thanks for voting and the wishing me luck.

**Silent Movements -** thank you for what you wrote and for understanding why created the story the way that I did.

**zynaofthenight -** You have every chance of winning!

**MetalManiacJoe -** I couldn't agree more. Working through the pain of a bad relationship makes the right one feel that much better.

**EPICThunder (or the friend of) -** this review meant a great deal because they were a high school swimmer and suffered the same type of injury that Percy did. He/she said that my chapter described what he/she went through four years ago. I hate to hear of anyone getting injured but it is a wonderful feeling for an author to hear someone say "oh yeah, I so know what you are talking about."

Well, off to write more...

(As always) Happy Reading,

MFP


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